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RobM_110093's avatar
RobM_110093
Historic F5 Account
Mar 09, 2011

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: WAN Optimization Solutions

People often ask me, "Rob, I hear BIG-IP is more than just a great load balancer. Can you tell me more?"

 

 

Of course, we prefer the term "Application Delivery Controller" to "Load Balancer." There are several great options to add to BIG-IP LTM, and one of the best is our WAN Optimization Module, or WOM for short.

 

 

Dell has unique opportunities to provide its customers with great storage solutions. The EqualLogic product line has been very successful for Dell, and I think it's a good idea to look at a WOM solution on most of these configurations.

 

 

If you have enterprise storage, you'll need to back it up, replicate it, etc., right? There are costs associated with that: backup window length, admin costs, additional network traffic, etc. So let's get in and get out as quickly as possible so we can get our job done faster and save money at the same time.

 

 

Here's your toolbox for WOM success:

 

 

Fred Johnson, our resident genius, has co-authored another Dell Power Solutions article entitled, "Accelerate and Secure Dell EqualLogic iSCSI Replication with the F5 BIG-IP WAN Optimization Module". Here's the link: http://bit.ly/cm56Op

 

 

Here's a Customer Case Study on F5 WOM with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI storage: http://bit.ly/hyeXr2

 

 

Replicating an Oracle database with Streams or Dataguard? Here's a link to a video demo for RMAN replication with WOM: http://bit.ly/cbLbZw

 

 

For more general information about WOM, here's the WOM page at f5.com: http://bit.ly/bHmstV

 

 

Dell Reps: Looking for a quick two-page pdf to help explain the benefits of WOM to your customers? Here it is: http://bit.ly/dCuxiZ

 

 

In a nutshell, WOM gives you the following key benefits:

 

 

* Accelerated Replication Performance

 

* Improved Bandwidth Efficiency

 

* Consolidated Infrastructure

 

* Cost Savings

 

 

And if you already have BIG-IP in your network, it's very easy to add WOM licenses! Let us know if you have any questions, or how the Dell/F5 team can further assist you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Melanie_Christi's avatar
    Melanie_Christi
    Historic F5 Account
    This is great info Rob. I would also like to add that WOM is part of our solution for MS Exchange 2010 as we are able to optimize WAN traffic for DAG replication with WOM.

     

     

    You can read further by viewing our MS Exchange Wiki on the Dell Enterprise Technology site. http://dell.to/gSLZkI

     

     

    Database Availability Groups (DAG) provide Mailbox availability and automatic database recovery in the event of failure. Continuous replication and monitoring of all group members allow for quick detection and recovery of a Mailbox database. If an active member fails, DAG will bring up the passive database copy on another server and resume services, minimizing the impact to end-users. For disaster recovery (DR), DAG members may be located in different sites that are geographically separated, for example Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO), and interconnected by a wide area network (WAN). This change allows DAG replication traffic to be WAN optimized by F5.

     

     

     

    In addition, WOM is a key component in our solution for Dell's DX Storage Solution. WAN Optimization for DX- Encrypt and acceleration WAN communications with cache, compression, de-duplication, TCP optimization and tunneling of DX HTTP traffic between data centers. Here is a link to the full wiki: http://dell.to/hAWLK6

     

     

    Stay tuned for the F5 | DX Power Solutions article in late March! "Enhanced agility and security for DX Object Storage Platform infrastructures"