IDC: WAN optimisation to hit big time

Consolidation in the WAN optimisation space, along with demand for network management tools, will see a comprehensive range of new products hit the mainstream, an industry analyst has claimed.

Although still in its early days, IDC telecommunications analyst, Shing Quah, said the WAN optimisation market promised strong growth. She forecast massive vendor consolidation over the past year would see more complete products coming to market. Recent activity included Packeteer's purchase of Tacit Networks, Expand Networks buying DiskSites and Juniper snapping up Perebit.

"Within the next year we will start to see WAN optimisation products increasingly bundled with vendor platforms and other products such as switches and routers," Quah said.

Another key driver for uptake in Australia was the vast geographical spread.

"One of the reasons WAN optimisation is a growing market locally is that WAN costs are still very expensive in Australia and a lot of companies face geographical challenges," Quah said. "Companies with branches in regional areas, such as mining companies for example, are really hurt by the cost of bandwidth."

The comments follow the launch of Packeteer's new iShared WAN optimisation range. The devices connect remote and branch offices to improve wide area file services (WAFS) to the data centre and synchronise file operations. The products are the result of the networking vendor's acquisition of Tacit networks earlier this year.

Packeteer country manager for A/NZ, Bede Hackney, said the market was hungry for WAN optimisation.

"I think there are a lot of opportunities for the channel in the WAN optimisation market. I think it is really maturing and organisations are realising they need to have strategies in place to optimise networks," he said.

As the iShared products extended beyond networking and into the storage and server space, Packeteer would hire technical staff and recruit additional resellers with this focus, Hackney said.

Dimension Data national business manager for connectivity and converged communications, Roland Chia, said the integrator was currently trialling the iShared product with six customers.

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