Improving performance and optimizing bandwidth for wireless networks

Aug. 6, 2010 - PRLog -- Over the past few decades, the utilization of wireless networks has grown significantly, with the use of cellular phones, smart phones and wirelessly connected computers. These networks are being used to send and share voice and data communications for personal, business and government uses throughout the world. Emergency services such as police departments, fire departments and medical emergency teams use wireless networks to communicate and exchange vital information. These networks can be a cost-effective way to stay connected in regions and countries where telecommunications infrastructure is too expensive or limited.

Wireless users need continuous connectivity and optimal performance when moving between coverage zones and connecting between WiFi and 3G networks or WLAN access points. However, wireless connectivity has inherent limitations due to latency, packet loss, chatty transport and application protocols, and bandwidth congestion. Fortunately, these shortcomings can be mitigated by using WAN optimization solutions. Through the use of TCP and application optimization, compression, caching, and connection management, WAN optimization can deliver a greatly improved user experience, for both enterprises and wireless Internet service providers (WISPs). These solutions enable organizations to achieve substantial performance improvements and bandwidth gains for their wireless networks.

WAN optimization and application acceleration overview

WAN optimization controllers (WOCs) and application delivery controllers (ADCs) use technologies that solve application delivery problems, offload servers from handling compute-intensive tasks, and enable limited bandwidth to be used more efficiently. These solutions enable organizations to take advantage of wireless networks to accomplish the following:

-Provide LAN-like performance to consumer users, remote offices and mobile workers
-Improve throughput and delivery of applications and data to maintain and improve the user experience and productivity
-Efficiently utilize wireless connections to enable more traffic to flow within existing bandwidth

ADCs are single-sided solutions that typically have an acceleration appliance located at the datacenter (or NOC) delivering outbound acceleration. As a single-sided solution, the ADC accelerates datacenter operations through SSL termination and processing, JPEG image reduction, transaction load balancing, GZIP compression, data caching, application firewalling and URL access control.

WOCs are two-sided solutions, which typically have an appliance at the datacenter, and either software (SoftWOCs) deployed on end-user computers and mobile devices, or WOC appliances located at remote offices. In a two-sided implementation, WOCs can offer everything the ADC provides, plus:

-Bi-directional compression
-HTTP/HTTPS turn reduction
-Cache differencing
-Multiplexing of large compressed or encrypted data objects
-SSL acceleration by terminating SSL traffic at the client
-Content distribution / pre-caching
-CIFS acceleration

Distributed workforce

Through the deployment of strategic technologies such as WAN optimization, distributed organizations enable wireless-connected employees to quickly and reliably access enterprise applications. WAN optimization technologies deliver the acceleration required to ensure consistently fast performance to end-user devices over wireless networks, while providing affordable solutions that accelerate enterprise applications to remote laptops and mobile devices.

Two-sided acceleration software is available to deliver LAN-like application performance to users in remote offices, or on the road. These solutions enable organizations to be more agile, adaptable, and competitive by enabling fast, reliable and secure access to datacenter applications, without sacrificing remote office and mobile worker productivity due to poor wireless network performance.

Software-based WOC (SoftWOC) capabilities are becoming increasingly more important as organizations seek to reduce WAN optimization implementation costs as dedicated hardware may not be practical for small remote offices and individual mobile workers.

Two primary benefits from SoftWOC:

1. Greatly reduced cost of ownership
2. Leveraging complete WOC capabilities without requiring hardware at remote locations

"Deploying SoftWOC acceleration at the remote locations can be very practical, as is the case with wireless Internet broadband connectivity", states Gordon Dorworth, President and CEO at Stampede Technologies. "In this market, both response times and bandwidth utilization are absolutely critical. Response time is of primary importance to the end-user, while bandwidth utilization is of primary importance to WISPs". Fortunately, SoftWOC solutions serve both of these needs, without requiring additional hardware or expertise from the end-user, yet, allows the service provider to save considerable, expensive bandwidth that they can deliver to other customers.

Alternatively, for remote offices, Branch Office WOC devices are also available for bi-directional acceleration that can support a diverse set of wireless remote user devices. These products can be affordable, and can be an excellent solution for WISP operators and customers that have multiple users within remote offices.

The author: Tom Yohe, Vice President of Engineering at Stampede Technologies, a leading provider of WAN optimization and application acceleration solutions for satellite and terrestrial-based networks.

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Stampede Technologies is a pioneering innovator of Internet performance solutions for WAN optimization and application acceleration. Stampede provides flexible solutions that solve a variety of difficult challenges that inhibit Internet Service Providers from taking advantage of the full potential of their networks, and prevent their customers from receiving the best possible network performance over terrestrial and satellite broadband networks.