The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance - Jason Whitaker, Transylvania University
1. The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance Jason Whitaker, Transylvania U. & VistaOne Corporation
2. Packeteer Packet Shaper 6500 at end of life - we have always liked the Packeteer, but… Generating a “watch” was not easy – when we receive a DMCA request, we want to see what the user is actually doing. Had to run a command line script to create and set up a traffic class to observe an IP address New peer to peer apps were discovered but had to be manually added to the P2P policy folder No out of band management, couldn’t browse to the device if things got hairy Where We Came From…
3. The price of the Exinda caught our eye in comparison to the Packeteer 7500 We sized up the 4760 model, had a demo unit sent to us Generates very pretty PDF reports Has a plug-in to integrate with Active Directory, so we see a login ID associated with an IP, which is nice Can quickly set up a “watch” right in the web interface (they call it a network object) Automatically adds new peer to peer apps to a group, so your policy on the group immediately applies Out of band management actually helped us in one instance… Enter the Exinda
4. Can restrict/grant access or bandwidth for a specific user regardless of the computer they are on Can restrict/grant access or bandwidth for a specific AD Group of users regardless of the computers they are on Example: If a department is slammed and needs priority bandwidth, you can give it to the entire department quickly and easily. WE ARE NOT COMPARING APPLES TO APPLES – the Packeteer 7500 may do some of this stuff Enter the Exinda
15. Exinda vs. Packeteer 6500 Exinda has Active Directory integration that allows shaping an individual or group of individuals regardless of the PC they are using The out of band management allows identification and isolation of a threat when the Packeteer would not even respond to a telnet or web session Reporting is much more responsive, informative, and elegant than the Packeteer 6500. Simple to set up yet feature rich, such as the ability to email a PDF report on a schedule So What’s Not To Like?
16. Exinda vs. Packeteer 6500 (continued) Exinda updates include new classifications of applications such as P2P and will automatically add them to the P2P Application Group. With the Packeteer, have to periodically drill down the tree, identify new P2P apps and manually add them to the P2P restriction class So What’s Not To Like?
17. Exinda vs. Packeteer 6500 (continued) Current Exinda reports are “pre-filter”, meaning they show what the user “might be using”. For DMCA purposes, may want to see “post filter” data Dynamic sub-partitioning is very new for Exinda; we are doing it “their way”… prioritizing classes of applications and not putting a max limit on any connection – have to be careful when you set percentage thresholds on different traffic types Not sure if there is a CLI for Exinda, though most of the things we used the Packeteer CLI for are available in the Exinda web interface So What’s Not To Like?
18. We really like the Exinda, it cost several thousand dollars less than an equivalent Packeteer 7500 and so far, we’ve had zero DMCA requests since acquiring it… of course, our Shaper was end of life and not getting updates Exinda says they are addressing the “pre-filter” reports Summary
19. The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance Jason Whitaker, Transylvania U. & VistaOne Corporation