Wide Area Networks have inherent delays and bandwidth limitations. Because of its high cost due to satellite capacity shortage, bandwidth is further limited for satellite based infrastructures. Repetitive data sent across the satellite link increases total utilisation and introduces congestion, slowing down applications and creating user frustrations. Many applications compete for limited Satellite bandwidth resources, causing further congestions and degradation of critical applications.

It is therefore necessary to meet the demands of IT Managers for more economic and effective ways to manage and optimize their satellite-based infrastructure, by providing the tools which will help them understand how the bandwidth is used, defining what is important for their business and improving their applications’ performances. To ensure optimum network performance, the available bandwidth must be managed efficiently and allocated to the most critical corporate applications, such as procurement, logistics and accounting, Voice over IP, Video Conferencing, VPN connections or work related web-browsing. Access to online music or video downloads, online news or radios, non work related web browsing should only be permitted if and when there is available bandwidth (for example after office hours) and if higher priority applications do not require this bandwidth.

Exinda and Netenforcer bandwidth managers precisely allow that! They provide a range of WAN optimization management appliances suitable for remote branch offices that can be easily incorporated with satellite based infrastructures. Both solutions provide real time, daily and weekly applications activity reports and can be configured to guarantee the performance of important applications and prevent or restrict access to lower priority and unprofessional applications. With application response measurement technologies, these bandwidth managers allow IT managers to quantify application response times from a user’s perspective at the remote site. This in turn assists in optimizing applications with greater accuracy and measures the benefits derived from effective optimization.

With a very limited investment, Bandwidth Managers are highly beneficial for satellite based networks: by prioritizing applications, managing the quality of service, and providing real time reporting on the network performance, bandwidth resources are optimized and operating costs greatly reduced.