Application Acceleration and Wan Optimization Fundamentals

IT organizations face pressure to increase productivity, improve application performance, support global collaboration, improve data protection, and minimize costs. In today’s WAN-centered environments, traditional LAN-oriented infrastructure approaches are insufficient to meet these goals. Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization Fundamentals introduces a better solution: integrating today’s new generation of accelerator solutions to efficiently and effectively scale networks beyond traditional capabilities while improving performance and minimizing costs through consolidation.

Ted Grevers and Joel Christner begin by reviewing the challenges network professionals face in delivering applications to globally distributed workforces. You learn how accelerators are transforming application business models, enabling IT departments to centralize and consolidate resources while also delivering consistently superior performance.

Grevers and Christner show how to identify network consumers, prioritize traffic, and guarantee appropriate throughput and response times to business-critical applications. You learn how to use quality of service techniques such as packet classification and marking and traffic policing, queuing, scheduling, and shaping.

Next, you compare options for integrating accelerators and optimization services into your network and for optimizing content delivery. The authors show how to address application protocol-related performance problems that cannot be resolved through compression or flow optimization alone. In the final chapter, the authors walk you through several real-world scenarios for utilizing accelerator technology.

Ted Grevers, Jr., is the solution manager for the Cisco® Video IPTV Systems Test and Architecture (C-VISTA) team. He has extensive experience in the content delivery network (CDN) market, focusing on enterprise and service provider content delivery and application optimization needs.

Joel Christner, CCIE® No. 15311, is the manager of technical marketing for the Cisco Application Delivery Business Unit (ADBU). He has extensive experience with application protocols, acceleration technologies, LAN/WAN infrastructure, and storage networking. Grevers and Christner are key contributors to the design and architecture of Cisco application delivery and application acceleration solutions.

• Provide high-performance access to remote data, content, video, rich media, and applications
• Understand how accelerators can improve network performance and minimize bandwidth consumption
• Use NetFlow to baseline application requirements and network utilization
• Ensure network resources are allocated based on business priorities
• Identify performance barriers arising from networks, protocols, operating systems, hardware, file systems, and applications
• Employ application-specific acceleration components to mitigate the negative impact of latency and bandwidth consumption
• Integrate content delivery networks (CDN) to centrally manage the acquisition, security, and distribution of content to remote locations

• Leverage WAN optimization technologies to improve application throughput, mitigate the impact of latency and loss, and minimize bandwidth consumption
• Optimize the performance of WANs and business-critical WAN applications

This book is part of the Cisco Press® Fundamentals Series. Books in this series introduce networking professionals to new networking technologies, covering network topologies, sample deployment concepts, protocols, and management techniques.

Ted Grevers, Jr. , is the solution manager of the Cisco Managed Media Solution (C-MMS) for the

Cisco Video/IPTV Systems Test and Architecture (C-VISTA) team, focused on Cisco service

provider customers. The C-MMS offering provides live streaming media and on-demand content

delivery to cable high-speed data subscribers, adding QoS to DOCSIS service flows, ensuring

an enhanced quality of experience. Ted joined Cisco via the SightPath acquisition in early 2000

as a systems engineer. The SightPath acquisition became the foundation for the Cisco Content

Networking product offering with the Content Engine (CE) and ultimately the Wide Area

Application Engine (WAE). Shortly after the acquisition, Ted transitioned to the Content

Networking Business Unit in 2001 as a technical marketing engineer and then became manager

of technical marketing in 2002. Currently attending Framingham State College, Ted is completing

his undergraduate degree. Milford, MA, is home to Ted, his wife, and three children.

Joel E. Christner, CCIE No. 15311, is the manager of technical marketing within the Application

Delivery Business Unit (ADBU) at Cisco. Joel and his team are responsible for the technical

marketing aspects associated with the Cisco Application Networking Services (ANS) advanced

technology products including Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) and Application

and Content Networking Services (ACNS). These responsibilities include creating white papers,

presentations, training, competitive analysis, and collateral; enabling sales; and driving product

requirements and strategic direction with the product management team. Before joining the

ADBU, Joel was a member of the storage networking advanced technology team within Cisco.

Joel is a graduate student at Columbia University working toward a master’s degree in computer

science. He holds a bachelor of science degree in electronics engineering technology. Joel lives

with his wife in San Jose, CA.