Learning from experience

Network Optimization This newsletter is sponsored by Exinda Networks Improving Application Performance - A Unified Approach Stop the complaints about slow applications. Regain control of your network. Turbocharge your applications with Exinda, a unified WAN optimization and acceleration solution. Find out why network managers worldwide are falling in love with Exinda. Network World's Network Optimization Newsletter, 09/18/07 Learning from experience By Ann Bednarz It’s not hard to find companies that are jumping into WAN optimization. Every month I see a handful of press releases announcing new customers that have signed on to purchase different vendors’ gear. What’s more rare is finding an old pro. But I was lucky to hear from one recently: Liz Claiborne. The apparel company has been using traffic-shaping gear from Packeteer for six years. Joe Yankauskas, IT director with Liz Claiborne, says the company deployed Packeteer’s PacketShaper appliances to prioritize and deliver its business-critical applications, including its ERP and retail management applications. Find out the Latest Power and Cooling Options If deploying a liquid-based cooling system isn't in your budget, listen to this Webcast, Data Center Power and Cooling Options. Hear industry expert advice on steps you can take today to create a more energy efficient data center. Advice ranges from improving communication between IT and facility management to searching out and eliminating all "dead servers". Get more details here. Six years ago, HTTP, CIFS and MAPI traffic was consuming too much bandwidth, imposing performance penalties on essential network traffic, Yankauskas says. “The original impetus was simply to make sure that our mission-critical business applications were delivered to the sites and didn’t have conflict with non-mission-critical applications like e-mail and regular HTTP traffic,” he recalls. Prioritizing voice traffic is another key use of the traffic-shapers. Liz Claiborne started deploying VoIP technology three years ago and today it has about 5,000 VoIP phones in use. “Voice requires the highest priority traffic on the network because you can’t retransmit voice packets. If you drop a packet, you get the jitter and scratchiness on the phone,” Yankauskas says. Liz Claiborne so far has deployed the PacketShaper appliances at its corporate data center and roughly 40 satellite offices, which are networked via a variety of T1 and DS-3 circuits. The PacketShaper appliances have “now become staple as we roll out new sites, new locations,” Yankauskas says. But while the company’s deployment dates back six years, that doesn’t mean it’s not dynamic. One thing that is new is Liz Claiborne’s in-progress rollout of Packeteer’s Report Center software, which will enable the IT department to centrally monitor traffic and perform trend analyses. The software creates a dashboard that consolidates metrics to make it easier for administrators to spot throughput issues and track network behavior, for example. “At a glance, they can see how each circuit is performing and determine whether or not they have to fine-tune any of the parameters and shaping to give more availability to a particular application,” Yankauskas says. Without Report Center, reviewing metrics requires individually pulling data from each device. “You have to attach to each PacketShaper at each site and pull down the reports,” he says. Yankauskas is hopeful the Report Center software, once fully operational, will help Liz Claiborne more accurately evaluate and predict bandwidth requirements. With Report Center, the IT team will be able to “do careful analysis to determine exactly when we need an upgrade and when we don’t need an upgrade,” he says.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Ann Bednarz is an associate news editor at Network World responsible for editing daily news content. She previously covered enterprise applications, e-commerce and telework trends for Network World. E-mail Ann. This newsletter is sponsored by Exinda Networks Improving Application Performance - A Unified Approach Stop the complaints about slow applications. Regain control of your network. Turbocharge your applications with Exinda, a unified WAN optimization and acceleration solution. Find out why network managers worldwide are falling in love with Exinda. ARCHIVE Archive of the Network Optimization Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007