Objective
The main objective of enterprise networking is to enable communication, and enabling users within the network to access to data that is stored in different devices of the network.

Single, LAN and WAN
Depending on needs of the organization, enterprise network can be a single network within an organization or a group of LAN or WAN networks.

Local Area Network (LAN) – A LAN is a group of devices that belong to the same geographic area, and are connected in a network. For example, a network of computers within the same room or same building or adjacent building.

Wide Area Network (WAN) – A WAN is a group of devices that belong to different geographic areas and are connected in a network. For example, connecting the main office of a business in one city to its branch offices in another city.

Things businesses need to consider
Enterprise network as a whole consists of very sensitive data of the business. The network should be secured properly in order to secure this critical information.

Enterprise network must be monitored constantly and disconnect the isolated, unwanted or inactive users in order to speed up the operations running in the network and increase the performance of the network.

Make sure that the enterprise network you choose has minimal or no limitations in connecting devices in different environments. It should be able to connect devices or computers that belong to different environments (manufactures, operating systems, etc.).

For example, in a business, enterprise network should enable connection among desktops, laptops, mainframe systems, smartphones, IP phones and computers run by operating systems such as Windows, Mac, etc., HP printer, Samsung monitors, etc.

Parts of an enterprise network
Any enterprise network generally comprises the following electronic devices.
Internet – Internet connection that an organization gets is by leased lines or broadband connection or 3G, etc.

Router – Routers act as bridges between your organization’s network and the Internet connection.

Unified Threat Management (UTM)/Firewall – UTM is a hardware appliance or a kind of software that provide security to end points or network in an organization. Example of UTM are anti-virus, anti-spam, IP filtering, content filtering, firewalls, etc.

Switches – There are three types of switches. They are core switches, distribution switches and edge switches. The core switch is the center of enterprise network. It connects to various devices of the organization using edge switches and distribution switches.

NAS (Network Area Storage) device – NAS is a location where a bulk of data is stored and any server or system of the network can access them whenever required.

Wireless access points – Wireless access points are the places that contain built-in radios, and provide signals to the devices, that have built-in adapters.

Wireless controller – In an organization, there are many wireless access points, where all the devices can access wi-fi. The device that manages all these wireless access points is called a wireless controller.

IP Telephony server – The IP telephony server provides services to all the phones connected in the enterprise network.

Network end points (Devices) – Network end points are PCs, laptops, smartphones, etc. that are connected to network through switches or wireless access points in an organization.

Enterprise network finds wide application in businesses and improves their productivity. It is cost effective and ideal for small and mid-sized businesses.

Related Links:
site monitoring

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The award for ‘Outstanding Best Practices Implementation’ was presented to Apsera Tech. in a ceremony held at OPNET’s fourteenth edition of annual technology conference, OPNETWORK 2011. The event attracted technology users, domain experts and thought leaders from all over the world. This year’s theme for OPNETWORK was on managing application performance in the cloud. Representing Apsera Tech. at the award ceremony was Sampath Prakash, President and CEO and John Sikora, Chief Technology Consultant.

“Apsera Tech. is honored to be recognized by OPNETWORK as an organization which established best practices. We believe this prestigious award reflects our dedication to following best practices in defining, measuring, improving, trouble shooting, and managing application transaction performance. This award is an excellent acknowledgement of the Apsera Tech. team that contributed to this success,” said Sampath Prakash, President and CEO, Apsera Tech.

When asked to brief about their exceptional milestone achievement and thought leadership, a spokesperson for Apsera Tech said, “A leading bio-tech company consulted us to consolidate its five data centers into a private cloud architecture. Major concerns included the post-migration performance of the client’s fifty business-critical applications, and accurately estimating bandwidth requirements at its new cloud data centers.”

He further added, “We conducted a two-track assessment project leveraging OPNET solutions. One focused on response time analysis, and the other on bandwidth estimation. Using AppTransaction Xpert, we identified the applications that could be migrated to the cloud without significant performance degradation. Traffic information, organized by business group, was obtained from AppResponse Xpert and used to simulate probable traffic patterns in AppTransaction Xpert, and accurately estimate bandwidth requirements. Using OPNET solutions, we were able to successfully migrate our client’s applications to the private cloud.”

‘Outstanding Best Practices Implementation Award’ is part of OPNETWORK’s Best of OPNETWORK Achievement Awards program that encourages users to strive for excellence and continuous improvement. OPNET Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of solutions for application and network performance management.

Since its founding in 2005, Apsera Tech has served companies from diverse fields by recommending and implementing the Application Performance Management (APM) solutions, optimized specially for their businesses.

About Apsera Tech: Apsera Tech is a rapidly growing Application Performance Monitoring (APM) consulting company. Its goal is to make your critical applications provide ‘Response @ The Speed of Thought’. Apsera Tech was founded in 2005 with the sole objective of helping its clients meet the performance goals of their networked applications by recommending and implementing the APM solutions that are optimized specifically for their clients’ businesses. Their team of expert consultants has extensive APM domain knowledge and PM implementation skills. Apsera has been serving numerous satisfied clients right from the planning stages of Wan Optimization to efficient and effective WAN optimization deployments.

Contact:
Apsera Tech
Phone: 732-306-1762
Website: http://www.apseratech.com
Email: help@apseratech.com

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WAN optimization controllers can avoid network latency with the help of protocol optimization techniques. Depending on the WAN traffic, WAN optimizations controllers also perform data prioritization. QoS Policing and traffic shaping are also key features of using WAN optimization controllers. There are various types of WOCs products based on the functionality provided by them.

Some of the features that can be found in WAN optimization controllers include:

• Enterprise Content Delivery Network (CDN) features, which enables speed delivery of live and on-demand media content
• Acceleration features which are application-specific, for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), TCP, and access for Common Internet File System (CIFS)
• Security features like Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) optimization, and tunnel encryption between WAN optimization controllers and encrypted discs
• WOC enables speedy delivery of applications to the systems which are remotely located, through the client’s software.
• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Active Directory, Domain Name system (DNS) and print server for business organizations that require an integrated branch-office appliance.
• Router features integrated WOC devices helps in selection of route and policy-based routing.
• WOC helps in monitoring and enforcing rules, which are specific for each application.

The APM consulting gives the information about right controllers required for the business.

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Benefits:
Improves Productivity
Slow speed of application performance really hampers the employee productivity and customer satisfaction. Use of WAN optimization techniques accelerates the applications over the WAN, speeds up the data transfer and reduces the end-user application response time. This in turn makes transactions faster thereby leveraging the employee productivity. WAN optimization reduces the time taken to complete repetitive operations and helps in increasing employee productivity.

The employees waiting for long time to get a transaction done or download a file can not give prompt service to the customers and it results in unsatisfactory customer experience. By eliminating the network problems and reduced throughput, the remote employees can access the network applications that are installed on other locations at a faster rate. Accelerating the applications over the WAN also helps the mobile workers making it easy for them to cater their services to consumers.

Reduces Bandwidth Cost
Using WAN optimization techniques like bandwidth management/QoS, caching, compression, and Protocol optimization can significantly reduce the usage of bandwidth which in turn pulls down the network costs.

• In Bandwidth Management, limits are set on network applications as to how much bandwidth they can use. This ensures maximum utilization of existing bandwidth by critical applications without providing additional bandwidth, saving considerable amount of money.
  In Caching, the copies of important files are stored in multiple locations. The users need not have to download these large files every time thereby reducing the bandwidth utilization.
• Protocol optimization decreases the transmission delays thereby increasing overall speed of transmission and transaction response.
• Compression techniques help to reduce size of the data thus saving time of transmission. Compression helps to send data in a faster way thus increasing reducing load on communication links.
• Compression and caching together help keep the communications link uncongested and reduces queuing delays.

All these factors reduce bandwidth usage which in turn reduces cost. WAN optimization allows users to access WAN applications at speeds similar to a LAN.

WAN optimization accelerates application performance by eliminating issues like redundant file transmissions, chatty protocols, network latency, packet loss etc. WAN optimization ensures consolidation of IT infrastructure of the business at remote locations thereby ensuring higher productivity at remote offices. Using WAN optimization, the businesses can reduce remote office infrastructure cost by effectively centralizing applications, data storage, and server at data centers.

WAN optimization techniques increases transaction speed, improves productivity, and reduces bandwidth cost enabling businesses to be competitive and focus on newer markets. WAN optimization implementation helps businesses to get excellent ROI on their investments by reducing bandwidth costs and improving overall productivity.

Source: Apsera Tech, Inc

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