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TiernanO
Asked: 2012-09-20 04:17:16 +0800 CST

WAN Optimization for Small Office/Home Office

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I have been reading up on WAN optimization for the last while, mostly out of interest of speeding up my own internet connections, but also to speed up the office internet connection. At home, I have 2 cable modems plugged into a RouterBoard RB750, which load balances the connections. In the office, we have a single connection into a NetGear router.

Most of the WAN Optimization products I have seen, seem to be prohibitively expensive, but also seem to be based on the idea of having multiple branches around the world. What I am looking for, ideally, is as follows:

  • software install: I am "guessing" I need to install it in 2 places: one in the office or house, and one in "the cloud".
  • any connections going to, say, The US (we are in Europe, but our backup's live in the US currently, which would be something important to speed up) would be "tunnelled" though the Optimizer. If downloading or uploading large files, open multiple connections between both "the cloud" and the optimizer... This is where a lot of speed could be gained.
  • finally, for items not compressed, they would be compressed on the cloud side of things, also items that are already on the optimizer could be not sent again. kind of like RSync or Proxy servers...

So, is there something that can be done? Is it available using off the shelf components (some magic script with SSH, Squid, Linux and duct tape) or is it something that needs to be purchased? or even an Open Source Project that does 90% of what i am asking?

[UPDATE] Just to be 100% clear, these are 2 separate connections and 2 separate systems... I am trailing this at home and may use it in the office also...

networking

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    What are you trying to do exactly?

    If your internet isn't fit for purpose, change it or upgrade it. It sounds like you've got a myriad of issues.

    1. You haven't mentioned the model of the Netgear router - but its probably very unlikely that it can push 250Mb/s
    2. You are only load balancing the connection at the source of the traffic. So this means you won't get an aggregated total of 250Mb/s - you'll be getting 2x 125Mb/s. If you used the two connections as 2x MPLS L2 connections to a single aggregator "in the cloud" (dare I say it) - then you could utilise 250Mb/s (assuming the 'cloud' machine had connectivity >= 250Mb/s)
    3. You haven't mentioned what you are sending between source and destination. Are you sending single large archives once per day, or are you looking for a real-time performance enhancement? For the former, with enough CPU power - you might have a speed-up by using a very high level of compression at the origin - then decompression at the destination. But there's not much that can do this on-the-fly, as its far too application specific. Perhaps a VPN tunnel with compression enabled?

    The crux of it is, if you don't have enough capacity, you don't have enough capacity - you can't get more speed that isn't there.

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