WAN optimization technology has been around for quite some time now.  In 1994, it was first introduced for telephony and later made its way into data networking to prioritize different types of traffic.

Over time, WAN optimization technology has grown in sophistication giving us protocol optimization, an ability to handle a wide array of traffic (e.g., CIFS, HTTP, FTP, MAPI, SSL, etc.) and variety acceleration techniques.  Given how long WAN optimization has been around, one would think that the WAN optimization market is shrinking and that every company has this technology by now.

However, according to a May, 2010 Gartner report entitled “WAN Optimization Controller Vendor Revenue, Worldwide, 2006-2014, the WAN optimization controller market will continue to grow to US $9.83 Billion from 2009-2014 at a compounded annual growth rate of 14.6 percent.  So, what continues to drive the WAN optimization market?

Several significant IT trends are the drivers for the WAN optimization market:

-Server virtualization

-Cloud computing (public, private, hybrid approaches)

-Data center consolidation

-A continual need for the network to handle complex applications and rich media

In addition to these market drivers, there is one absolute:  Whenever applications are being accessed over the wide area network, they will always be subject to delays, packet loss and jitter …which will inevitably lead to application performance  delays.

As we see it, the WAN optimization will continue to go strong for many years to come.