Application Acceleration

Because most applications today were designed to be "co-located" with their users-either on the same device or at a data center-operating them over a WAN inevitably introduces performance issues. This is as true of applications based on the Microsoft CIFS protocol as well as protocols designed for accessing applications over long distances, such as Citrix/ICA and RDP.

Expand addresses application performance issues by changing the serial nature of application communication to a latency mitigating parallel nature, reducing the number of back and forth data transactions.

Expand solutions are application-specific, providing a breakthrough approach that works in combination with its compression algorithm to improve application response times even further: TCP Acceleration: enables TCP transfer speeds in excess of WAN link speed, even under challenging latency and packet loss conditions. Expand's TCP acceleration uses the standardsbased SCPS protocol (the Space Communications Protocol Standards) that was developed by NASA and the DoD for performance optimization in high latency links.

Expand for Oracle

Expand Network's Compass platform provides a unique solution that accelerates Oracle Applications over the WAN leveraging multiple technologies:

• Compression - 8 Mbps of traffic can reliably be sent over a 2 Mbps link
• Acceleration - Accelerate Oracle Application an average of 500% with peaks of 6,500%
• QoS - Ensure that when Oracle Applications are the highest priority for your business, that they will be the highest priority for your network

A Compass solution for Oracle Applications, as documented by the real-world report graphs, will significantly improve usable bandwidth on the WAN link (8 Mbps on a 2 Mbps link) as well as application acceleration (300% - 500% on average and 1,500% -6,500% in peak situations). These optimizations mean improved end-user experience and productivity at the remote site, as well as future cost mitigation, avoiding unnecessary and costly future bandwidth upgrades.

Expand for SAP

Expand Networks' Compass platform delivers a unique solution that mitigates the impact of the hostile WAN, accelerating SAP to the remote workforce, for all SAP architectures. The Compass platform is actually a multi-service platform that integrates the best technologies, on a single, cost-effective appliance (the Accelerator). With the Compass platform working in the network, remote workforce SAP performance will ensure that productivity is once again a given.

Here are some of the relevant Compass technologies that improve SAP performance on the WAN:

• Compression increases network capacity on average by 400%, removing bandwidth bottlenecks and avoiding un-necessary and costly bandwidth upgrades
• Acceleration rate of 500% and better, overcoming protocol limitations, reducing application chattiness, and mitigating latency
• Pattern recognition and caching for static and dynamic content which eliminates transfer of repetitive data over the WAN
• Prioritizing SAP over non-business applications at the critical point where congestion can most impact SAP performance. Compass' QoS services ensure that the network appreciates which traffic is most critical for the business. The QoS functionality is sophisticated enough to distinguish traffic at layer 7, meaning that Compass can distinguish between SAP traffic and other web traffic, giving preferential treatment to SAP. Additionally, using Compass for all of your QoS needs will avoid queues and congestion that will exist if the QoS is activated within a separate network device on the (e.g. Router or Firewall)
• Improve SAP Citrix deployments by optimizing Citrix traffic and setting top priority to SAP compared to other Citrix applications. Compass will allow you to increase the number of Citrix sessions supported at remote sites without increasing the size of the WAN link
• Transparency mode to maintain the benefits and service levels of MPLS or other network monitoring, routing, and control infrastructures that rely on original packet information
• Offloading SAP application server by caching presentation content and reducing the application chattiness, allowing these servers to better service the back-end R/3 ABAP services

Expand for Microsoft Exchange

Compass enhances Exchange with:

• Up to 2,500% Exchange acceleration over the WAN
• Works with Outlook caching enabled
• QoS to enable continuous replication capabilities
• Protocol acceleration to mitigate latency and fill the pipe
• Transparency to simplify infrastructure integration

The Compass approach to Exchange optimization is one where the best parts of Microsoft functionality are used when possible. For example, starting with Outlook 2003, Microsoft enabled a cache mode function that does a fantastic job at mitigating the performance hit of MAPI over the WAN. The Compass solution recommends continued use of this secure performance optimization, so only new traffic needs to traverse the WAN (and Compass' predictive algorithms can easily handle this first-pass traffic). On the other hand, by disabling Exchange's compression of MAPI traffic, allowing this to be handled by the award winning Compass technology, the Exchange server resources are immediately freed up, allowing better scalability and server response times.

Synchronization and exchange of data between Exchange servers is critical to reliability and scalable operations. Using mostly SMTP protocols between Exchange servers, in addition to compression, Compass is able to greatly reduce transfer times by use of protocol (TCP) acceleration. Particularly when these Exchange servers are in different datacenters, Compass' QoS ensures that Exchange's continuous replication capabilities has the bandwidth it needs, without adversely impacting the performance of other application sharing the WAN.

Combined with Microsoft Exchange, Expand's Compass platform ensures that the communications infrastructure is up to the business and technical challenges that face a distributed workforce. By transparently optimizing Exchange traffic to the branch office and between datacenters, IT organizations are able to reliably achieve both efficiency and productivity, while supplying the business with anywhere and anytime access to vital business communications.

Expand for Citrix ICA

Compass enhances Citrix ICA with:

• Up to 1,000% Citrix ICA acceleration over the WAN, with a consistent 300%
• Reliably add 50% more user sessions on the same network
• QoS to protect ICA sessions performance
• Protocol acceleration to speed larger ICA transfers over the WAN
• Transparency to simplify infrastructure integration

Expand for Terminal Services

Compass enhances Terminal Services with:

• Up to 1,000% Terminal Services acceleration over the WAN
• Reliably add at 50% more user sessions on the same network
• QoS to protect Terminal Services performance
• Protocol acceleration to speed larger RDP transfers over the WAN
• Transparency to simplify infrastructure integration

To completely remove congestion as an issue, Compass' easy to use QoS will make sure that what is important to the business is also important to the network. RDP will not be slowed or flat out disconnected as a result of other traffic sharing the WAN link. In addition, Compass' TCP protocol acceleration will help speed those larger RDP transfers, such as graphic applications usage, web browsing, and image viewing. This kind of acceleration goes a long way combat the ill effects of latency on application performance.

Taking this already valuable solution to the next level, Compass has a special RDP plug-in technology to further optimize the traffic. This technology allows on average 50% more user sessions on the same bandwidth. More sophisticated than data reduction and compression technique, this application specific optimization actually multiplexes RDP sessions together temporarily for transport over the WAN.

Tightly and transparently integrated with Microsoft's Terminal Services, Expand's Compass platform ensures that cost savings server consolidation projects can be a success. Infrastructure upgrades are avoided, while Terminal Services user performance is closely managed. In fact, with the RDP plug-in, user capacity is reliably extended on the existing infrastructure. The result is an effective and efficient project that meets end user performance requirements.

Expand also supports these applications and architectures:
Double-Take
MRO
NetApp SnapMirror
MIMIX
BAAN

More about Expand Solutions and products