On the lookout for a consistent, stable and reliable WAN
When systems manager Yohan Beghein joined Skullcandy as a network architect, he had a major challenge at hand — customer demand spiked tremendously during the holiday season. To meet this level of demand, productivity and collaboration levels needed to be at an all-time high. With MPLS, this was a challenge. Application performance was poor, and Skullcandy was experiencing latency issues. With offices around the globe and the adoption of cloud-based SAP Business ByDesign, Beghein needed to deliver a consistent, stable, reliable and latency-optimized WAN to implement better global productivity and collaboration for Skullcandy.

The rescue mission at Shenzhen
After an arduous search procedure, Beghein came across Aryaka and did a proof of concept with two of their sites, Skullcandy’s headquarters in Utah and their office in Shenzhen, China. The deployment was up within a week, and the performance improvements were such that the end users in China had this to say: “Wow! What did you do to the network?” After deploying Aryaka’s WAN as-a-Service, Skullcandy’s Telepresence, VoIP, SAP Business ByDesign and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) application performance increased significantly, and Skullcandy was able to meet the spikes in demand, as well as improve employee productivity.

What did Aryaka do differently?
With MPLS, it took several months to get the links and bandwidth in place, but since Aryaka has global Points of Presence (POPs), Skullcandy just needed to connect to Aryaka’s POPs via standard IPSec VPN tunnels. These tunnels, with built-in redundancy, allowed Skullcandy to talk to their HQ, data center and cloud/SaaS resources. For example, when users typed “sapbydesign.com” into their browsers, the traffic was automatically routed to Aryaka and was then optimized and routed to SAP’s datacenters. Combine this with flexibility of bandwidth, 24x7x365 support, zero CapEx and 99.99% uptime, and Skullcandy now had access to a global cloud presence that was always available with low latency.

“Aryaka gives us much better flexibility, improves service levels, lowers overall cost, and simplifies our global environment,” said Mark Hopkins, Senior Director of IT at Skullcandy. “Overall it has been a big win for us!”

Simplified management + agile deployment = faster performance

A global presence does not mean it has to take more time to deploy a network. And once deployed, employees should be able to collaborate seamlessly, whether they are next door or halfway across the globe. Shifting to Aryaka simplifies network management and makes global companies like Skullcandy more agile, leading to faster performance and optimizing the use of time and money.

Still not convinced? Sign up for a free trial.

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1) They want to connect remote offices quickly, and
2) They want a fast, reliable network.

So, why is agility so important? The math is fairly simple: speed equals productivity. Taking months to connect an office in Asia to the US-based corporate HQ can really hamper productivity. And once connected, shaky network and application performance can drag down employees who must collaborate. With offices in San Jose, California, and Bangalore, India, Xactly faced this precise problem…

[bctt tweet=”Speed = productivity! Learn how to build a fast and reliable global #WAN”]

A fast network is motivating
How would businesses love to describe their salespeople? Motivated. And motivation is what Xactly offers. Xactly’s products help companies design customized incentive schemes to maximize their sales force’s potential. For an organizational culture built on employee collaboration, there is no underestimating the importance of a speedy and reliable WAN.

IT challenges in India and beyond…
Xactly was relying on MPLS as the backbone for its global usage of remote desktop protocol (RDP). It wasn’t performing well. Xactly was suffering from network performance issues and faltering uptime between its offices in California and India. Application performance was poor, and overall end-user experience was frustrating. Worse yet, the sub-optimal use of WAN bandwidth resulted in massive MPLS bills. The company needed a more reliable, more affordable alternative to MPLS.

[bctt tweet=’Aryaka’s network is “better than traditional #MPLS, with customer service that actually serves.”‘ via=”no”]

Jumping onto a network for the cloud in less than a day
On the recommendation of one of Xactly’s IT providers in India, Xactly moved all of the traffic between its San Jose and Bangalore offices over to Aryaka’s network for the cloud. Aryaka’s global private network uses multi-segment TCP optimization, compression, and application acceleration proxies built into an optimized network platform. This solved the latency issues and offered higher throughput and up to 6 times faster application performance. What’s more, it was set up overnight, as compared to MPLS, which required 2 to 3 months to get deployed.

As Aryaka’s network and built-in optimization are delivered from the cloud, Xactly’s internal IT department no longer needed to manage the day-to-day operations of the network. As Director of IT Robert Genchi says, Aryaka’s network is “cheaper and better than traditional MPLS, with customer service that actually serves.”

Employees must be able to collaborate easily. Whether they’re in the next room or halfway across the world, even if they have excellent productivity apps and tools, it’s the network that allows these apps and tools to operate efficiently. Unfortunately, existing legacy solutions such as MPLS – slow both in deployment and network performance – make collaboration cumbersome.

Agile deployment. Faster performance.
Global expansion plans should never be held up by the time it takes to deploy a WAN. And once deployed, your global network must perform with speed and reliability. Aryaka helps global businesses like Xactly transform their WAN from a cost center to a powerful technology that can help achieve a competitive advantage and face a range of challenges from cloud computing to Big Data and the Internet of Things.

Still not convinced? Sign up for a free trial today!

The post How an Agile Network Helps You Own the Globe appeared first on Aryaka.

First of all, contrary to popular belief, globalization and MPLS do not work well together – for business reasons. While pricing for MPLS has dropped a good deal within the US and Europe in the last few years, connecting to China, India, Brazil or Australia can still be prohibitively expensive. Especially if you have a smaller branch office to turn up, it’s not worth the investment. Plus, lengthy deployment times (all the way up to 6 months) can lead to a longer time to market and undue project implementation delays. Try telling your MPLS vendor that you’re moving your office just across the street in Shanghai, and you’ll know what we’re talking about!

Secondly, with cloud adoption reaching ubiquity, and tons of SaaS vendors offering enterprise applications, CRM and BI solutions with a web front end, network managers are facing a whole new set of challenges. Since the access medium to all these cloud services is primarily the Internet, application performance takes an obvious hit. And MPLS cannot help.

According to Network World, the hybrid WAN needs a radically different approach to optimization.  Here’s what Zeus Kerravala has to say, “What would be ideal is a superset of WAN acceleration, QoS, Firewalls, ADCs, analytics, and management software. This would allow network engineers to manage, optimize, and secure the user experience on a per-application basis. My idea of a utopian solution is that it would work over the traditional private network, but then optimize Internet traffic for cloud services”.

Certain WAN Optimization appliance vendors have added Application Performance Management functionality on top of the optimization feature set. This is basically “path selection” or “dynamic WAN selection” where the appliance splits application traffic and selects the best network to route it through – depending on priorities and business objectives. Path selection mechanisms usually route site-to-site traffic through MPLS links while site-to-cloud traffic (being comparatively lower priority) often suffers the brunt of congestion on the Internet.

For cloud or SaaS acceleration, WAN Optimization vendors are trying to figure out the best routes (avoiding congestion) over the Internet to the cloud data center – either through partnership with a CDN provider or by developing their own intelligence so as to route their way around the problem. While this does improve performance at times, the Internet middle mile is still public and unreliable. Therefore, consistency goes for a toss, especially during the rush hours.

On the commercial front, MPLS and WAN Optimization vendors tend to nickel and dime enterprises for every additional functionality that they ask for. Not to mention the hard dollars that enterprises need to spend on visibility and support.

Fortunately, there is ONE network built for the hybrid WAN – that combines the power of WAN acceleration, QoS, ADCs, analytics and management software.

Aryaka ONE is the world’s first and only global, private, optimized, secure and on demand network that delivers simplicity and agility to address all enterprise connectivity and application performance needs. Aryaka ONE optimizes both site-to-site and site-to-cloud traffic over a private backbone that completely bypasses the unreliable public Internet. Aryaka eliminates the need for deploying piecemeal solutions like costly WAN appliances or long-haul private MPLS links.

Gartner considers us a Visionary as we redefine WAN Optimization across global networks.

–          Aryaka Marketing Team

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I ask my sales team what they hear in the trenches, and the excuses they’re given are legion – and most sound like rationalizations. This isn’t meant to knock people making those decisions, but rather to highlight a psychological trait we should all be more aware of in our lives: the resistance to change.

We all resist change to some extent, but some organizations resist change more than others. Research from New Catalyst has found that organizations that develop a “culture of toxicity around failed change” are the least likely to change.

The culture of toxicity develops for a variety of reasons. Sometimes management overhypes change. Other times there is “change fatigue” when organizations try to change too much, too often.

Another common reason people resist change is because they fall for FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) campaigns waged by incumbents. “If you switch, the Internet will literally break.” Okay, that’s an exaggeration of the FUD being pushed by incumbents – but only a slight exaggeration.

The thing about MPLS is that change is coming. It’s only a matter of how much time and money you’ll waste before you change. The skyrocketing costs of MPLS coupled with the changing nature of MPLS already makes MPLS obsolete.

The next time your MPLS contract comes up, here are some of the myths MPLS vendors will throw your way. Knowing these myths will help you better assess your options and overcome the fear of change.

Here are my top-five FUD talking points peddled by incumbents, and the reasons why each is a myth:

Myth #1: MPLS is always private end-to-end.

The truth: This is true only some of the time.MPLS vendors have been known to sell connectivity as a combination of private and purely Internet-based links. In certain locations, the last mile may be a DSL link because there is no good way to pull a private link to certain parts of the world.

Myth #2: MPLS is more secure than the Internet.

The truth:This is false!Unless IT secures data running over an MPLS network using VPNs, it travels in clear text.

Myth #3: My MPLS vendor has a global network to serve my needs.

The truth: There is no truly “global” MPLS vendor. MPLS vendors work with partners using strategies like ICI/NNI or resale to enhance their global network strategy.

Myth #4: I need QoS and therefore MPLS for my voice systems and videoconference equipment to work.

 The truth: This is partially true. MPLS does work great for real-time applications like voice, video and more. However, there are other ways to get reliable connectivity between two or more locations.

Myth #5: MPLS is the best way to improve application performance.

The truth: This statement is built on a few assumptions that are only occasionally true. MPLS does work well for the performance of real-time applications. However, TCP-based applications, which most applications now are, require more intelligence built into the network to improve their performance, especially over long distance. WAN optimization as a technology is routinely deployed on top of MPLS networks at a huge cost and with a long deployment timeline in order to improve the performance of data-centric applications.

In other words, you need to buy another expensive networking solution to paper over MPLS’ inherent weakness in handling data-centric applications.

One final observation: Another reason people fear changing is a kind of herd mentality. There is perceived safety in following the herd. If the MPLS network is down, so is everyone else’s network – so you’re not at a competitive disadvantage. That’s the perception, not the reality, but if everyone else believes the same myth and behaves in the same irrational way, there is safety in that false perception.

So, remember the next time you hear FUD from an incumbent, they are playing on your quite natural, often even logical, fear of change.

They are peddling fear to distract you from the truth, so remember, you actually have another choice.

Rather than staying in denial, so you can rationalize those expensive checks you send to the major carriers, and so you will fork over even more money when it comes time to upgrade, look at your choices.

Look at networking innovation. Look at next-generation solutions, such as those from Aryaka. But don’t trust me on this. Evaluate your options . . . for free.

Anytime, you can run a no-cost, no-obligation trial with us to learn for yourself how much money you can save (often millions in networking costs) and how much time you will save, when it no longer takes weeks or months to set up new links.

What would you rather do? Play it safe or take a calculated risk that will, when we deliver on our promises, make you look like a visionary and an agent of change?

– Sonal

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