Network Optimisation.

With secure foundations laid in the network infrastructure, the next step is to maximise those resources. This is a significant challenge though, especially when considering the need to cope with the increasing complexity of IT infrastructures, escalating costs across the board as well as for issues such as compliance. And this doesn’t even take into account the continual roll out of new and varied business applications. Intelligent network optimisation is a solution to overcome these challenges.

Magirus has four key areas of network optimisation:

1. Visibility
2. Quality of Service
3. WAN Acceleration
4. WAFS (Wide Area File Services) Acceleration

1. Visibility

It is important to have a 360 degree view of the entire network and see all the issues that can affect business operations.

A principal element for greater visibility is Wide Area Network (WAN) simulation. The service imitates and tests different parts of the WAN in a safe environment to uncover any weaknesses within the network. It provides the ability to prevent bottlenecks that could damage the business. Also, the service allows our partners to test different types of network appliances from different vendors. This allows them to develop best-of-breed, intelligent networks for their customers.

Application discovery provides the next level of visibility by classifying existing applications and identifying new ones to support the business. Therefore, network resources can be better managed and costs can be reduced.

Performance monitoring enables ongoing visibility to analyse bandwidth utilisation and optimise network performance. With the benefit of greater visibility, recreational and unsanctioned traffic can be better controlled and bandwidth can be prioritised for critical business applications.

2. Quality of Service

With a complete picture of the network, four features can be added to deliver greater quality of service:

1. Bandwidth management allows the network to prioritise, control and manage securely the way applications and subscribers use available bandwidth
2. Load balancing spreads capacity across the network for optimal resource utilisation, throughput, or response time. Using multiple components with load balancing, instead of a single component, can increase reliability through redundancy
3. WAN policies provide good network discipline for network optimisation. A good example is the prioritisation of bandwidth of business-critical applications for CRM and ERP while limiting recreational traffic such as social networking sites.
4. Services delivery. Services tools to exploit the performance capability of an integrated network approach. These provide comprehensive application intelligence, enabling the network structures to be adapted dynamically to business processes

3. WAN Acceleration

Compression of data complements bandwidth management to optimise the network whilst simultaneously reducing storage costs. The compression allows the network to upload and download more data. Overall, it allows the network to operate more efficiently.

Protocol acceleration: Network protocols like TCP, FTP or HTTP – can be accelerated, enabling data transfer and business applications to be optimised.

4. WAFS (Wide Area File Services) Acceleration

comprises caching and local services that optimise local network performance to support today’s distributed organisation and its increasingly mobile workforce.

Caching stores copies of documents (e.g. HTML pages, images) locally such as on a mobile user’s device rather than taking up storage space in the data centre. This helps to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived response time to obtain information.

Similarly Local Services such as printing, domain control or a web proxy to download pages from the Internet, can be accessed locally. Typically, this improves business performance and reduces recurring WAN link costs significantly.