As more businesses make the move to the cloud, optimising WAN performance is important. Now, a Singapore-based company has spoken out about the benefits it has achieved with these techniques. But what are these advantages and can other firms also profit from them?
1. International Bandwidth Issues :
Petredec is a shipping organisation that has its headquarters in Singapore and a presence in many other countries, including Monaco and Bangladesh.
Network Computing reports that it relies heavily on communication between its employees in order to operate effectively, which is particularly important when such large cargos and contracts are at stake.
It was using VoIP and video conferencing in order to facilitate this cross-border interaction, but until it started using WAN acceleration to overcome issues with bandwidth, the quality of these data-intensive services was questionable.
Spokesperson Lucas Foo explained that latency was wreaking havoc with the network, causing instability and serious problems when staff tried to communicate with one another across significant distances.
As well as compromising the user experience for VoIP and video conferencing, the poor WAN performance meant that certain transactions carried out by traders within the company were not properly registered and thus failed, which in a fast-paced market was yet another issue that needed to be overcome.
Mr Foo said that at first, the attempts of the company’s IT department to find a solution were relatively fruitless, in spite of the fact that it deployed technologies in order to compress the digital data being transferred from one site to another in order to minimise lag.
After experimenting with a number of in-house solutions, it became apparent that more drastic measures were required to overcome the bandwidth issues that were plaguing the company.
2. Cloud Rescue Plan :
Petredec eventually decided that adopting a cloud-based network optimisation platform was the way to go and found that once it had migrated to this remotely hosted service option, the call quality and video hanging issues it had suffered in the past were completely alleviated.
Mr Foo said that following this adoption of a cloud service, the company was able to boost levels of employee productivity because it subsequently took less time to achieve certain goals and complete everyday activities that are essential to the smooth operation of the business.
Moving to the cloud not only allowed the company to optimise its WAN performance, but also meant that it had a greater ability to monitor network usage and assess how, where and when particular apps and communications solutions are being accessed.
3. Wider Implications :
For businesses, this case presents an interesting example of how a better optimised WAN can be a boon when it comes to both communication and analytics reporting.
Cloud computing may not be the ideal solution for every firm, so there are other on-site options for the accelerating of networking if you want to support VoIP and video conferencing.
VoIP optimisation is easier to achieve because it is less data intensive than a service that also involves video, while still being just as important to optimise.
It is important for businesses to consider WAN acceleration services if they are finding faults and niggles with their current arrangement. It may take some experimenting to find the right match, but improved productivity awaits those that take the plunge.
AUTHOR BIO
Adriana is a writer and journalist who has published articles on bandwidth optimized WAN acceleration and other enterprise IT topics with various online outlets. She believes that cloud computing, video conferencing and VoIP will formulate the future of business communication.