For companies with offices in many locations, whether UK or world wide, Internet connections are essential for business. From the user point of view, there is no such thing as too much bandwidth: more speed helps get work done faster.
Faster networks equal more productivity
Unfortunately more bandwidth means more cost unless you think laterally and use technology to save money. One ISN client, property fund management company Warner Estates Holdings plc, have fast WAN links for communication between their UK offices.
When users in Cardiff and Preston started to complain about slow response times, the cost of simply increasing bandwidth was prohibitive.
ISN recommended and installed a solution involving WAN acceleration and data deduplication. When measured against previous interbranch network speeds the average speed gain was 400%. Buying two Internet links that were four times faster would have cost £20,000 each year. Warner's outlay for the same benefit was a one-off £7,000.
Alan Sheppard, Warner's IT Manager said:
"The WAN accelerator boxes we are using are a godsend! We are considering upgrading to new ones that can run a couple of virtual servers, which will be perfect for branch office use."