Blue Coat and Microsoft

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)

Microsoft App-V lets you deploy, update and support applications as services in real time, on an as-needed basis. With App-V, you can transform individual applications from locally installed products into centrally managed services by streaming them over common HTTP and RTSP protocols. The question is, how can you manage and prioritize the increased demand for limited WAN bandwidth?

The Blue Coat Application Delivery Network (ADN) helps you accelerate and optimize the deployment of App-V virtualized applications, resulting in network cost savings and improved employee productivity for remote users. As part of the ADN, Blue Coat ProxySG helps reduce the cost and complexity of managing desktop applications by optimizing virtual application delivery over the WAN while avoiding costly bandwidth upgrades.

In fact, test results show that Blue Coat ProxySG products significantly accelerate the streaming of App-V applications for remote branch office users. In one study, users could access applications three times faster with ProxySG appliances, and bandwidth utilization was reduced by over 99%.

To learn more, read our Application Performance Brief: Microsoft App-V

Microsoft Office:

Microsoft Office is a suite of common applications to author, edit and produce documents, spreadsheets and presentations. These files are typically stored on a centrally located file server available to groups of users. To open, save and manage documents between the user’s computer and the server, Microsoft uses the Common Internet File System protocol (CIFS).

CIFS typically make hundreds or thousands of round trips between the client and server, so it is particularly vulnerable to latency. Therefore, when Microsoft Office files are accessed natively using CIFS, remote users often experience significant performance delays that can impact productivity.

The Blue Coat Application Delivery Network (ADN) helps accelerate and optimize any application that relies on the CIFS protocol, including Microsoft Office applications. By reducing latency and increasing WAN throughput, the ADN dramatically reduces the time needed to open, edit and save a file in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel. For instance, one study discovered the following performance gains:

• Blue Coat improved Microsoft Office application performance by an average of 59 percent over a 256Kbit/second WAN link with 110ms of latency
• In the same test, Blue Coat improved performance by 50 percent over a T1 WAN link with the same latency
• Subsequent operations on the same files consistently showed 99% improvement in response time for both links

Overall, Blue Coat has been shown to accelerate the time to open, edit and save Microsoft Office documents by 70x, a critical performance improvement needed to make these applications usable over a WAN link.

To learn more, read our Application Performance Brief: Microsoft Office Applications

Microsoft Email:

Microsoft email applications are essential for just about every business transaction: messaging, scheduling, and, in many cases, file transfer and collaboration. Users in branch offices, unaware of limited WAN bandwidth, often send large attachments to various users throughout the enterprise, even if they are in the same branch office. These emails not only take a long time to deliver, they can congest the WAN and cause other business applications to suffer.

In response to these performance problems, Microsoft has developed synchronization and optimization improvements to enhance the end-user experience and minimize bandwidth requirements. While these new features help address some of the issues introduced by latency and bandwidth limitations, users in branch offices still suffer from poor performance.

The Blue Coat Application Delivery Network (ADN) provides a comprehensive infrastructure that uses ProxySG acceleration technology to improve performance and response times, reduce and prioritize bandwidth usage and significantly reduce the time to complete email operations.

One study with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange tested email delivery over a WAN link of 1.544 Mbps (T1) with 100ms latency. The results showed Blue Coat ProxySG appliances accelerated email delivery time more than 24 times, even with a 5MB attachment sent to multiple addresses.

To learn more, read the Application Performance Brief: Microsoft Email Applications

Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS):

Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) has been a popular choice for IT professionals to manage Windows laptops, workstations and servers for many years. SMS is designed to operate in a distributed network with multiple sites and offices, requiring distribution points at each remote site and branch office to offset performance issues caused by WAN links with limited bandwidth and increased latency.

SMS software packages can consist of large data sets, which are normally scheduled for delivery during off-peak hours to prevent SMS traffic from competing with business-critical applications. However, even with these schedules in place, there is still potential for these tasks to run longer than expected and result in WAN congestion during business hours.

In tests using a Windows XP client, Blue Coat ProxySG appliances reduced the transfer time of SMS packages by over 15 times, while simultaneously decreasing bandwidth usage to near zero, a 99% performance improvement. The tests included downloading an entire directory and an individual installation file, where the WAN link from the client to the distribution point had a bandwidth of 1.544 Mbps (T1 link) and 100ms latency.

To learn more, read the Application Performance Brief: Microsoft SMS2003

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server enables global users in distributed enterprises to collaborate and manage important files from a central location. The Microsoft SharePoint Server provides a consistent interface that simplifies how users interact with content, processes and business data. Everyday business activities, such as document review and approval, issue tracking and signature collection, are tightly integrated with familiar client applications, email and Web browsers.

However, slow and congested WAN links can degrade performance and discourage users from adopting collaboration software and processes. The Blue Coat Application Delivery Network (ADN) provides a comprehensive infrastructure that uses ProxySG acceleration technology to improve performance and response times, reduce and prioritize bandwidth usage and significantly reduce the time needed to complete all SharePoint server operations. As a result, the Application Delivery Network improves business and end-user productivity by accelerating all content management, collaboration and workflow processes from start to finish.

In a test using SharePoint server’s “file edit” feature to open, edit and save a 6MB Word document, Blue Coat ProxySG appliances reduced bandwidth utilization by 95%. In another test for retrieving a 39MB training video, Blue Coat ProxySG appliances reduced the file retrieval time by more than 100 times, and decreased bandwidth usage by over 99%.

To learn more, read the Application Performance Brief: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007