F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in application delivery networking (ADN), today announced performance testing results that demonstrate the value of combining storage, virtualisation, and WAN optimisation solutions to achieve superior data transfer capabilities.
With F5's integrated solutions, including the BIG-IP WAN Optimisation Module product, enterprise customers can more efficiently use existing bandwidth and reduce the costs of replicating data between data centres.
“As enterprises consolidate their globally dispersed data centres, business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) requirements drive the need for data centre to data centre storage replication and virtual machine migration capabilities,” said Joe Skorupa, Research VP, Data Centre Transformation at Gartner.
“This trend - coupled with the general increase of data travelling between corporate data centres - has led to the emergence of focused WAN optimisation products that enable enterprises to maximise the performance of critical BC/DR activities while minimising bandwidth costs for very high speed WAN links.”
Performance testing and results
Testing conducted by F5, NetApp, and other vendors confirms the value of combining WAN optimisation services with storage and virtualisation technologies. Results show that integrated WAN optimisation services can help customers address availability, performance, and storage migration requirements, while greatly reducing the effects of latency.
“With F5 and NetApp, joint customers can further optimise secure replication and long distance live migration efforts between data centres to bolster data migration and traffic balancing capabilities,” said Patrick Rogers, Vice-President, Solutions and Alliances at NetApp.
Through additional testing efforts, Hitachi Data Systems has qualified F5's BIG-IP appliances for use with Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication on Hitachi Universal Storage Platform and Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage. And significant performance and security benefits related to WAN replication have been demonstrated in combining Dell EqualLogic PS Series Internet SCSI (iSCSI) arrays with F5 BIG-IP solutions, including the BIG-IP WAN Optimisation Module (WOM).
F5 provides documented guidance on how results were achieved to help customers get the most from their IT investments. More information related to the above solutions can be found in the following F5 documents:
* Optimising Long Distance Live Migration with VMware vMotion, NetApp FlexCache, and F5 BIG-IP WOM - Solution Profile.
* Optimising Hitachi Data Systems Storage with BIG-IP WOM - Solution Profile
* Accelerate and Secure Dell EqualLogic iSCSI Replication with BIG-IP WOM
F5 solution details
F5's unique approach of layering in optimisation services as part of an open and flexible application delivery platform, TMOS, ensures consistency and reduced management costs. This integrated approach delivers the advanced LAN-side throughput performance critical to data centre to data centre performance, and provides a superior alternative to other point solutions in the market.
F5's WAN optimisation solutions allow two BIG-IP devices to communicate across the WAN using F5's iSessions technology to optimise traffic during data replication, offsite backup, and virtual machine migration. iSessions uses TCP optimisation, adaptive compression, intelligent byte caching, and other technologies to provide efficient bandwidth utilisation and maximum throughput.
F5's WAN optimisation solutions deliver performance benefits that:
* Ensure accelerated and secure offsite replication required to meet the recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) associated with data protection.
* Extend the distance between disaster recovery and backup sites, based on maintaining acceptable performance levels.
* Mitigate the need for higher cost WAN links or isolated WAN replication infrastructure.
* Enable efficient live migration capabilities across long distances for VMware vMotion environments in a secure, accelerated manner.
“Optimisation of WAN traffic between data centres is a critical component of F5's ADN strategy,” said Jason Needham, Sr Director of Product Management at F5. “With the ongoing trends toward data centre consolidation and escalating data growth, it is vital that enterprises maximise data replication efficiency while capping bandwidth expenses.”
Additional resources:
* BIG-IP WOM Product Information
* BIG-IP WOM Technical Brief
* F5 Solution Optimizes Oracle Database Deployments - Press Release
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F5 Networks
F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), focused on ensuring the secure, reliable, and fast delivery of applications. F5's flexible architectural framework enables community-driven innovation that helps organisations enhance IT agility and dynamically deliver services that generate true business value. F5's vision of unified application and data delivery offers customers an unprecedented level of choice in how they deploy ADN solutions. It redefines the management of application, server, storage, and network resources, streamlining application delivery and reducing costs. Global enterprise organisations, service and cloud providers, and Web 2.0 content providers trust F5 to keep their business moving forward. For more information, go to http://www.f5.com.
F5, BIG-IP, TMOS, WAN Optimisation Module, and WOM are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, in the US and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "estimates", "predicts", "potential", or "continue", or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.
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