SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 15, 2011 –During “tax season,” U.S.-based tax preparation service provider SurePrep puts increased stress on their wide area network (WAN) with innovative services that streamline tax and accounting practices. This increased volume of data, coupled with network challenges inherent to any global WAN, plagued the performance of SurePrep’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which spans multiple secure SAS-70 audited data center providers, a 200-seat service center in Irvine, Calif., a data center in Seattle, and a service center halfway around the world in Mumbai, India.
The combination of high-latency and poor network quality on international links made it “virtually” impossible for remote users to effectively use VDI during periods of peak congestion. This led SurePrep to deploy a WAN optimization solution. However, space limitations in the data center and logistical challenges associated with shipping equipment around the world eliminated options for hardware-based WAN optimization. Also, specific challenges associated with VDI such as packet loss, high flow counts, and non-TCP protocol traffic meant SurePrep needed a high-capacity and agile WAN optimization solution.
The answer was virtual WAN optimization from Silver Peak Systems, the leader in data center class WAN optimization. Silver Peak’s Virtual Acceleration Open Architecture (VXOA) allowed SurePrep to deploy virtual WAN optimization appliances on existing VMware ESX servers already deployed in the data center.
“There’s always an issue with access speeds when the server is not at the employee’s feet,” said Will Hosek, vice president of information technology for SurePrep. “Due to space limitations, international deployment issues, and other data center requirements, using a virtual appliance for WAN optimization makes a lot of sense. Silver Peak makes deploying and implementing WAN optimization very straightforward, and the virtual appliances provide agility that allows me to move WAN optimization on the platform of my choice, at any location.”
Not only did Silver Peak’s virtual appliances provide the versatility of being able to expand and contract their environment as needed, but also it provided them with the ability to get up and running globally within less than 24 hours once the localized network resources were configured.
“Due to its ease of implementation and versatility, virtual will now always be an option for us,” added Hosek.
Silver Peak VXOA powers the entire family of Silver Peak WAN optimization appliances. With Silver Peak VXOA, customers like SurePrep can deploy high-capacity data center class virtual WAN optimization on a wide variety of industry standard hardware platforms and hypervisors. Customers like SurePrep prefer Silver Peak for unique features that include Network Acceleration to overcome WAN latency, Network Integrity to correct packet delivery issues and intelligently allocate WAN resources, and Network Memory™ to maximize WAN bandwidth utilization. The result is up to 10x cost savings that can come from decommissioning existing private-line connections and avoiding investments in larger-capacity WANs and bandwidth upgrades.
About SurePrep
SurePrep, a U.S.-based company, is the leading provider of tax productivity solutions, which focuses on providing technologies and services that help make accounting firms more profitable. The company offers U.S. accounting firms a web-based file cabinet where tax return data is stored on servers in state-of-the-art data centers in Dallas, Seattle and Washington DC. SurePrep offers numerous advantages including increased availability of qualified personnel, faster turnaround, secure online access and lower cost. For more information, please visit http://www.sureprep.com/.
About Silver Peak Systems, Inc.
Silver Peak is the leader in data center class WAN optimization appliances that maximize WAN performance while minimizing WAN costs. The company’s unique network approach to WAN optimization delivers unprecedented scalability and flexibility, enabling enterprises to rapidly move large amounts of data across long distances. Silver Peak’s WAN optimization solutions are strategic enablers for large IT initiatives, including data center consolidation, data migration, cloud computing, disaster recovery, server centralization, and hosted virtual desktops (VDI). For more information, visit the Silver Peak InfoCenter .