MYTH #1: I DON’T NEED WAN OPTIMIZATION BECAUSE I’LL SOLVE MY PROBLEMS WITH BANDWIDTH

The truth: For certain organizations, this is absolutely true, but if you have a global presence and multiple offices, you may be costing yourself money, time, and employee productivity by doing things the old way.

One reason many businesses believe they don’t need WAN Optimization is because the telecom monopolies convince them to simply through more bandwidth at the problem. This line of reasoning says that bandwidth can solve all application performance problems. This is false. Throwing more bandwidth at an application performance problem is likely the most expensive and least effective way to solve WAN performance issues.

MYTH #2: I DON’T NEED WAN OPTIMIZATION BECAUSE MY TRAFFIC IS REAL-TIME OR ENCRYPTED.

The truth: This is outdated, a relic from the appliance era.

Others may believe that WAN Optimization is a poor fit because all their traffic is real-time or encrypted. This used to be a valid point. The traditional appliance-based WAN Optimization solutions couldn’t handle that type of traffic very well, if at all.

However, as the WAN Optimization market has innovated, true global private networks (like Aryaka’s) have emerged, serving as the backbone for other services. Thus, the optimization component is simply part of the cloud-delivery-and-optimization stack and is included as part of the service.

Click to learn about low cost alternatives for bandwidth scaling, and how it will deliver improved application performance for any IP application delivery globally over the internet.

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MYTH #3: WAN OPTIMIZATION IS ONLY POSSIBLE ON-PREMISES WITH AN APPLIANCE

The truth: This would have been true in 2004, but we’ve come a long way in the past decade.

Traditionally, WAN optimization was only made available through a group of about 10 appliance vendors; WAN optimization appliances varied in price from $500 for the lower end branch side appliances to upwards of $1,000,000 for datacenter appliances.

Many alternatives exist today to deliver WAN optimization as a cloud-based OpEx service; without any upfront investment. These solutions are available either through a leased model from managed services providers (which may actually be an expensive option) or better still, through cloud-based network services that deliver the benefits of both WAN optimization and private MPLS-like connectivity – without requiring long deployment cycles, long and costly refresh cycles, endless implementation headaches, and expensive maintenance and support contracts.

MYTH #4: WAN OPTIMIZATION VIRTUAL APPLIANCES ARE CHEAPER

The truth: They may be slightly cheaper, but the high cost is about more than the box.

Upfront, a virtual appliance appears cheaper, since you aren’t paying for expensive hardware wrappers. However, virtual appliances are still a more expensive, less responsive option. After all, an appliance is an appliance, and even a virtual one needs resources like memory, processing, and storage to execute the process for which it is designed. What you save in hardware you’ll probably spend in management.

The only way around this is to purchase WAN Optimization as a service, so that these deployment and maintenance issues become the service provider’s problem, and not yours. Due to efficiencies of scale and deep expertise, the service provider can handle the deployment, management, and maintenance far more efficiently and cost-effectively than a typical enterprise can ever hope to.

MYTH #5: WAN OPTIMIZATION APPLIANCES ARE A ONE-TIME INVESTMENT

The truth: This is blatantly false, and customers realize it after they buy their appliances and install them! 

After the initial purchase of the appliance, WAN Optimization appliances typically have a three- to five-year product cycles, followed by an end of life and/or end of support for that appliance. The vendor expects their customers to refresh their WANs or at a minimum pay for a new maintenance contract with support. Any changes to bandwidth requirements require an upgrade. Maintenance and management are additional expenses, not to mention the constant upgrade cycle for software each time an enterprise application version is adjusted. 

Give it a spin. See why Aryaka has 3000 customer sites across 50 countries in 300 cities (and counting). See why our customers are thrilled to have found a simpler, far more cost-effective way to achieve all their business objectives for connecting their offices, their users, and cloud services worldwide. Try us out now, for free and with zero obligation. You’ll be glad you did!

Want to personally talk with an expert? Email me at kolszowka@us-amplify.com with your questions or concerns, and someone will get back to you shortly.