Here's what the experts say about Silver Peak and the need for data center class WAN optimization:
Silver Peak "has the strongest current offering, with
top optimization techniques and monitoring and reporting. Silver Peak was an early adopter
of onboard disk encryption (128 bit AES encryption). The vendor offers a robust appliance
architecture designed on multi-CPU, multi-core, 64-bit AMD and Intel processor-based systems
and based on Silver Peak’s proprietary OS platform (64-bit Linux kernel). Silver Peak also has
the second strongest all-around optimization techniques offerings, with protocol techniques
such as CIFS acceleration, TCP acceleration, SSL, Brocade FCIP, UDP, MAPI, FTP, and NFS,
as well as application classification (using stateful deep packet inspection), traffic shaping,
policy enforcement, packet tagging/marking, capacity planning, path policies, optimization (by
policy), QoS parameters, pass-through, drop traffic, and dynamic QoS.”
– Chris SIlva, Forrester Research Senior Analyst, Wave Report on WAN Optimization Appliances, November 2009
Why is Silver Peak not in the leader's quadrant of the MQ?
The Gartner MQ places an enormous emphasis on WAN acceleration as it pertains to branch offices and the perceived need for a low cost, multi-function Branch office Box (“BoB”). Silver Peak's main differentiation lies in high capacity WAN environments (> 30 Mbps) and large enterprise networks. Gartner recognizes Silver Peak as a leader in these environments, but they view them as "niche" when compared to the overall market.
Is there a need for data center class WAN optimization?
Yes. Here are some examples:
Consolidation of branch office storage into data center locations will increase the amount of storage in the data center, making replication and network backup more challenging.
Network Storage in the enterprise continues to grow at a clip of 50% annually. Performing network backup and replication of this increased data will require higher performance WANs.
Latency, loss, and bandwidth capacity severely limit the rate at which data centers can operate. The impact of latency and packet loss can not be overcome by costly upgrades to higher capacity WAN connections. This issue become particularly important as more enterprises deploy real-time applications, like virtual desktops, VoIP, and video.
For companies implementing hundreds of ‘serverless branch offices’, the WAN connections between these offices may only be 2 Mbps or less, but these typically aggregate into data centers connected by 50Mbps or 100Mbps WAN connections and very high flow counts. Scalability across the product line is required in order to support these large deployments.
Where does Gartner address the WAN optimization requirements for high capacity WAN links and large enterprise networks?
These are both well rounded assessments of the WAN optimization space that address the unique scalability, security, and performance requirements associated with data center applications.
“Silver Peak’s three-part product strategy of providing scalability, security, and the ability to accelerate any IP-based application is helping the company succeed.”
Cindy Borovick, IDC’s leading data center analyst, has covered Silver Peak’s WAN Acceleration appliances since Silver Peak first launched. In her recent IDC Vendor highlight on Silver Peak, Cindy adds:
"The scalable and secure product architecture along with its application independence
(performing optimizations at the IP layer instead of at the TCP and application layer) will help Silver Peak
expand into large enterprises in markets such as financial services, legal, and software development organizations.
The data reduction offered along with optimization across the WAN is important in applications where large amounts of
data, such as in video and database applications, are transferred between the datacenter and remote users."
“With its NX Series and concept of Network Memory, Silver Peak is demonstrating that there’s more than one way to tackle WAN traffic optimization. The company maintains that for large environments in particular, it has the only approach that is able to effectively and efficiently scale, while its support for multiple applications off the bat is another strong claimed differentiator. Silver Peak has plenty of financial support and ... we’ll be looking for it to net some large accounts quickly."
– Steve Steinke, Senior Analyst, the451, "The Need for Speed" report
“Silver Peak has done a great job of making large WAN acceleration deployments easier to deploy and manage, and is smartly focusing on the performance and security requirements of large enterprises. In doing this, the company is helping enterprises transition WAN acceleration from a tactical solution to a strategic enabler of key IT initiatives, such as disaster recovery and server consolidation.”
“The most successful companies take a strategic approach to application delivery, choosing products that work across all WAN links and all applications.”
“By overcoming scalability limitations, Silver Peak can now interface with CIOs on a strategic level, helping to drive the re-architecture and consolidation of branch office infrastructure.”
– Jim Metzler, President Ashton Metzler and Associates
