Timely, Network Computing (Nov 25, 2004 issue) does a review in this area. That call the market "WAN Accelerators" and it includes both shaping and caching. In it, they review the following: Peribit Networks SM-500 Expand Networks Accelerator 4820/6810 Packeteer Packet Shaper 6500/2500 Xpress Swan Labs NetCelera Model T The article should be available online at www.networkcomputing.com <http://www.networkcomputing.com/> Tim Mangan _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of BRUTON, Malcolm, FM Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 6:02 AM To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' Subject: [THIN] Re: WAN bandwidth management/performance Your also talking about two different types of devices. Packeteer is packet shaping and restriction of protocols etc to certain rules. Expand boxes are WAN caching devices (kinda like a proxy server but for all traffic across a WAN). I believe you can use the two together though to get best performance. Personally if money was an issue I'd go for packet shaping over WAN caching. Malcolm _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Evan Mann Sent: 30 November 2004 23:11 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: WAN bandwidth management/performance We have a box from Allot (NetEnfrocer) which we will be testing and is extremely similar to Packeteer but cheaper. We havn't got it in production yet but plan to in the next few days. I always see Packeteer and Allot's name come out when it comes to bandwidth management. Packeteer is the biggest name because they were one of the first (the first?) to do bandwidth management on large and enterprise scales and be dedicated to ONLY that purpose, and I think you end up paying a little extra for name because of it. None of these products are cheap, by any means, and for a small branch office with 50 users, you may find it to not be cost effective, but I guess it depends on how much the hardware/maintenance cost compare to getting a smaller pipe and squeezing more from it. From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Grecsek Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 5:43 PM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] WAN bandwidth management/performance We are setting up 2 branch offices with about 50 users each to access our central office/server farm via Citrix. We are delivering full desktop sessions (including printing and surfing) to those offices and we're evaluating products to manage our WAN bandwidth/performance. Currently we're looking at products from Packeteer and Expand Networks but wanted to bounce it off the list to see what others are using for this as this will be critical to ensuring that our users are getting the performance they're expecting. I see that some of the big Citrix consulting firms are recommending Packeteer but from what I've looked at it seems like the equipment from Expand might be a better option? Our goal is to have as little equipment as possible at the branch office. Ideally all we'd like at each site would be the router, bandwidth management device, firewall, switch and then thin clients/dumbed down desktops. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, Chris Grecsek **************************************************************************** ******* The Royal Bank of Scotland plc. Registered in Scotland No 90312. Registered Office: 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2YB. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority This e-mail message is confidential and for use by the addressee only. If the message is received by anyone other than the addressee, please return the message to the sender by replying to it and then delete the message from your computer. Internet e-mails are not necessarily secure. The Royal Bank of Scotland plc does not accept responsibility for changes made to this message after it was sent. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission, opening or use of this message and any attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. No responsibility is accepted by The Royal Bank of Scotland plc in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate. Visit our websites at: http://www.rbs.co.uk/CBFM http://www.rbsmarkets.com **************************************************************************** ****