Picanol, a developer of hi-tech weaving machines, has selected Expand Networks WAN optimization technology to optimize the delivery of its server based computing infrastructure and bring users into virtual proximity of application and datacentre services.
Based in Belgium, Picanol Group has 15 branch offices around the world with over 500 remote users accessing centralized applications and data over Microsoft (News - Alert) Terminal Services.
After an assessment of WAN Optimization technology from Expand Networks (News - Alert) and Riverbed, Picanol Group selected Expand Networks for its better ROI, unique ability to monitor, optimize, and control the interactive RDP sessions of Microsoft Terminal Services and provide a superior end user experience.
"With the RDP sessions too bandwidth intensive for the WAN, the performance of key applications such as our Microsoft Dynamics ERP system was poor. In addition, we had no view or control of the applications on the network and therefore couldn't prioritize the business critical traffic which affected user and network productivity," said Bart Lagast, system engineer, Picanol, in a statement.
Lagast said that during evaluation, Expand Networks produced significantly better results than its competitors and was chosen as its integrated technology is ideal for accelerating RDP traffic and has impressive QoS capabilities to monitor and control this traffic.
According to Expand Networks officials, the company’s integrated WAN Optimization technology uses techniques such as byte-level caching and dynamic compression that specifically enable the real-time interactive TCP traffic of Microsoft Terminal Services RDP to be maximized.
Officials said that the unique ability to monitor, accelerate and control RDP traffic successfully optimized the server based computing project for Picanol.
Bart Lagast said that by deploying Expand, latency on the WAN is mitigated and RDP traffic is being accelerated by up to 700% (avg. peak acceleration). The company now has a user friendly and optimized WAN with greatly improved application response times of all critical applications including Sharepoint, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange.
Accelerating Exchange in particular has been of great value as it has enabled the company to consolidate its mail servers, greatly reducing the TCO on the infrastructure, he pointed out.
Lagast said that Expand's integrated QoS capabilities also gives the company a greater understanding and control of traffic on the WAN. This is important for the company for if there is a failure with either the MPLS network or IP VPN, it can prioritise applications and divert the traffic in a controlled way, he said.
‘In addition, we have some file servers running on VMware and we are using Expand's WAFS technology to accelerate the file traffic. The multiple benefits that Expand has given Picanol equates to an ROI of only one year," said Lagast.
Mike Betz (News - Alert), VP Sales EMEA, Expand Networks said that IT Managers are always being challenged to improve network performance and user productivity, but more than ever in today's economy, they also need to deliver costs savings and prove tangible benefits in investments.
Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anil’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jessica Kostek