IT pros vote virtual WAN acceleration

Silver Peak Systems has revealed its virtual marketplace has exceeded 20,000 downloads, highlighting continued demand for software-based solutions that simplify and lower the costs for accelerating wide area networks (WANs).

One of the market leaders in accelerating data over distance, the company says that during a recent study, when given the choice between physical or virtual WAN acceleration in the branch office, 81.6% of IT professionals surveyed indicated they prefer virtual.

First introduced a year ago, the Silver Peak virtual marketplace was the first-of-its-kind in the WAN optimisation market, providing anyone with instant access to free, self-service trials of Silver Peak’s broad portfolio of virtual solutions.

“It’s becoming more evident that the market has a strong preference for virtual WAN acceleration technology,” says Rick Tinsley, president and CEO of Silver Peak.

“Virtual is a win-win in terms of making it easier for customers to access and deploy WAN optimisation technology, and with advancements in hypervisor technology, performance levels are now as good as or better than hardware.

"This translates into costs savings and allows customers to avoid the expensive and all-too-frequent vendor-imposed hardware refresh.”