Maximizing WAN Optimization Profits the Virtual Way

There’s no doubt that wide area network (WAN) optimization is one of the hotter sectors of the IT industry at the moment. But as is often the case when things get hot in an IT sector, WAN optimization is starting to attract a lot of attention. Once that starts to happen, there is an inexorable downward pressure on margins as more solution providers in the channel compete for the same business.

Rather than simply riding that curve downwards, Certeon CEO Peter Dougherty says that solution providers should be moving to WAN optimization technologies that are delivered as a virtual appliance to not only increase their profits by lowering the costs, but also reducing the amount of time it takes to implement a WAN optimization solution.

Like many appliance-based technologies, WAN optimization is increasingly being delivered as a piece of software that gets deployed on top of a VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer virtual machine that more often than not can be easily installed on top of an existing physical server. Certeon’s aCelera approach to WAN optimization, says Dougherty, allows IT organizations to deploy WAN optimization anytime and anywhere they need it with 20 percent margins, as opposed to waiting for a piece of appliance gear to be acquired and deployed.

Because it’s software-based, Dougherty says this approach is also more profitable for the solution providers because the cost of funding the acquisition of a physical appliance is no longer required.

Virtual appliances are simply another great example of how staying ahead of the technology obsolescence curve ultimately serves to make solution providers more profitable by not only selling products that solve a customer problem, but also finding better ways to deliver those technologies in a way the serves the best interests of both the customer and the solution provider.