HP StorageWorks Enterprise File Services WAN Accelerator 3.0.4 deployment guide (AG421-96001, March 2007)

HP STORAGEWORKS ENTERPRISE FILE SERVICES WAN ACCELERATOR DEPLOYMENT GUIDE 15
1 - DESIGNING AN HP EFS
WAN A
CCELERATOR
CHAPTER 1 Designing an HP EFS WAN
Accelerator Deployment
In This Chapter This chapter describes how the HP EFS WAN Accelerator works and how to design an
HP EFS WAN Accelerator deployment. This chapter includes the following sections:
 “Introduction to the HP EFS WAN Accelerator” next
 “Design and Deployment Overview” on page 17
 “Definition of Terms” on page 19
 “Bypass Mode” on page 19
 “Failover Mode” on page 20
Introduction to the HP EFS WAN Accelerator
The causes for slow throughput in Wide Area Networks (WANs) are well known: high
delay (round-trip time or latency), limited bandwidth, and chatty application protocols.
Virtually all large enterprises spend a significant portion of their information
technology budgets on storage and networks, much of it spent to compensate for slow
throughput by deploying redundant servers and storage, and the required backup
equipment. HP EFS WAN Accelerators enable you to consolidate and centralize key
IT resources to save money, reduce capital expenditures, simplify key business
processes, and improve productivity.
The HP EFS WAN Accelerator not only addresses the bandwidth problem and
application protocol chattiness but the latency problem as well. The HP EFS WAN
Accelerator uses Transaction Acceleration (TA) to optimize throughput and save
bandwidth on WANs.
HP EFS WAN Accelerators intercept client-server connections without interfering
with normal client-server interactions, file semantics, or protocols. All client requests
are passed through to the server normally, while relevant traffic is optimized to
improve performance. HP EFS WAN Accelerators can be easily introduced into an
enterprise environment without requiring any significant changes to the network or
architecture.