The Steelhead appliances are great. They are an integral part of our network
infrastructure. They don't exclude other solutions (for example, we heavily use
Citrix to share 3D modeling tools across the globe), but they make a lot of
problems go away.
If WAN acceleration can give you the performance you need, it will make your
life, and your users lives, much easier than any kind of complex
replication-based solution.
Malcolm> From: [email protected]> To:
[email protected]> Subject: Re: Multiple engineering
offices and sharing large files> Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 10:02:43 -0800> >
Angus,> > I've done quite a few projects extremely similar to this one. In many
cases > what first appeared to be an expensive solution was actually cost
effective > and justified after doing some back of the napkin math. Don't let
the cost > scare you away from investigating this solution!> > In each of these
situations we had the following:> - Multiple Locations with varying user counts
(1 User to 250+ Users)> - Limited IT Support Personnel at HQ and none at Remote
Sites> - Users in multiple locations working on the same project> - Users
working long hours to meet project deadlines> > The solution that was used for
almost all of these customers was a > combination of:> - Riverbed Steelhead
Appliances> - Riverbed Steelhead Mobile> - NetApp Filers> > Depending on the
customer we either put the NetApp Filer at HQ or at a > Collocation facility.
Many of the customers didn't have the infrastructure > to host their own
Servers (Racks, Power, Cooling, etc) and since we are > centralizing all the
data it made sense to put it somewhere with a higher > degree of availability.
In a couple of cases we also deployed a 2nd NetApp > Filer at another location
to handle replication and provide fault tolerance > in case of an outage.> >
The Riverbed Steelhead's enabled the entire project to work. One device > needs
to be installed at each location or for very small sites the Steelhead > Mobile
client can be used. In every case, we tested the performance and > users found
that accessing files across the WAN was just as fast and in > *MANY* cases
actually faster than opening them locally (In the cases where > it was faster
across the WAN then the LAN the mitigating factor had to do > with disk speed.
Coming across the WAN the data came from the faster NetApp > Filer and on the
LAN it was either older SCSI disk or SATA). What made this > shine was the
Steelhead Mobile component. This is where the actual Customer > really fell in
love with the solution. By deploying the Steelhead Mobile > client on the end
users PC/Laptop, the user could now work anywhere and have > access to the
latest versions of the files.> > The use cases for this are endless but for the
Principle Architects / > Engineers they found this to be the most valuable
because it gave them time > back. One customer really liked the idea of taking
his laptop with him to > the customer site, make changes on the fly, coordinate
with his team back in > the office on those changes and have a new set of
prints made off his laptop > at the local Kinko's. Before he would make the
changes on the actually > drawings, bring them back to the office to make
changes on the computer, > have a new set of prints made and go back out to the
customer. Since the > customers were usually far away (many hours by car or air
travel) this meant > he could spend more time with his family instead of
working. In most of the > companies I implemented this for it was the Principle
Architects / Engineers > who this impacted the most and they were the ones who
ultimately > justified/approved the purchases.> > Pros:> - High Availability> -
Centralized Data> - Reduces Backup Headaches> - Hourly snapshots to revert
changes> - Simple to Replicate> - Improved performance for ALL data accessed
not just for specific CAD file > access (I-Mail, Web, File Sharing, etc.)> -
Improved business response time to customers> - Gave business users flexibility
in how and where they worked> > Cons:> - Expensive vs traditional IT methods> >
I've had great success doing this for many small, medium and large shops.> >
Let me know if you have any questions,> > - David> > ----- Original Message
----- > From: "Angus Scott-Fleming" <[email protected]>> To: "NT System Admin
Issues" <[email protected]>> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009
4:01 PM> Subject: Multiple engineering offices and sharing large files> > >
Anybody here running a small-business network with multiple geographically->
remote (e.g. Arizona, Wyoming, Maine, Florida) offices for which the main>
office and the remote office both need access to the same large files (e.g. >
CAD> drawings, large scientific datasets, GIS data)? The files are way too
large > to> process over a VPN as Internet latency would clobber processing
performance,> but the home office needs to have the same data that the field
office has so> they can both work on the data, if not simultaneously, then on
the same day. > I> don't think a TS setup would be reliable enough for this
situation as the> main=office's Internet connectivity isn't the most reliable.>
> Servers will probably be Windows SBS servers as I think SBS can handle the>
number of users they have for Exchange (up to 250 users, right?).> > I'm
thinking some sort of 'rsync'. but I'd be interested in how others have> dealt
with this.> > Related to this, how do you deal with email in a situation like
this? I'm> showing my ignrance about Exchange here, but is it possible to have
a > primary> Exchange server in the main office and have each satellite office
with its > own> mail server that draws from the main office but stores mail
locally so local> users can continue to have access to their email when the
main office's > lines> are down, or is this something that the SBS-version of
Exchange can't > handle?> > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T
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