wan optimization

carl_townshend · ‎06-11-2008

Hi all, im looking for some wan optimization for my 2 meg e1 wan link, we have a site with about 50-70 concurrent users of citrix over the link, can we optimize this traffic with cisco waas or riverbed etc ?

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎06-11-2008

Can't answer your specific question in reference to either Cisco WAAS or Riverbed, but if the Citrix in question is remote desktop, I wouldn't expect WAAS to perform much better than a proper QoS policy. If your concerned with Citrix disk copying or printing, then if WAAS supports it, it could provide a major benefit.

PS:

NB: The later Citrix NBAR version can distinguish the type of Citrix traffic.

n.nandrekar · ‎06-11-2008

Hi!

WAAS will definitely help to optimize the WAN link. WAAS uses specialized hardware just for the purpose of wan optimization, employing techniques like compression etc. at hardware to achieve better LAN-like performance of applications over wan link. It is really suited for tcp based applications like citrix.

But to extract the most value out of WAAS too, you would have to augment it with cisco QoS so that you prioritize / reserve bandwidth for your critical applications like citrix.

Regards,

Niranjan