The bMighty Blog -- Networking & Communications

WAN optimization was once solely under the aegis of large corporations. Recently, vendors dropped the prices points for these products from tens of thousands to a few thousand dollars, so interest among small and medium businesses is picking up.

As companies push more information from site to site, their telecommunications costs rise. To combat that trend, vendors have built an ever expanding array WAN acceleration products, and Endina is one of the companies trying to wedge itself into that market space. The firm’s Exinda 1710 was designed for small offices and supports up to 30 end users. The appliance can monitor up to 8,000 concurrent network traffic flows at speeds of either 2M bps or 10M bps. The appliance’s Quality of Service (QoS) features reserves bandwidth for applications, such as Voice over IP (VoIP). Reporting tools help small and medium businesses determine how well their WAN is functioning, and the product stores up to two weeks of network monitoring data on the appliance, which can be used to fine tune network policies. Longer term reports are available via Exinda’s Service Delivery Point, which is available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) option. Low price is also important, and the product costs about $1,500.

Exinda has a sound product with an attractive price point, however, the company faces a number of obstacles in building its business. The vendor was a bit late to market and therefore behind competitors in developing its customer base and distribution channels. It also has less name recognition than competitors, such as Cisco, Riverbed Technology, and F5, who have made major pushes into this space. Exinda was initially an Australian company and may have trouble carving out a niche here in the highly competitive US market. The vendor has a product line with some interesting features but may be thwarted by other market factors as it tries to make its push into WAN optimization prominence.

How much interest do you have in WAN optimization products? Would you be willing to work with a new player, such as Exinda? How much would you be willing to spend on one of these devices?

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