It's nice to see IT buyers fired up - in a good way - over their choice of WAN optimization technology (Compare Application Acceleration and WAN Traffic Optimization products). When Network World bloggers Peter Sevcik and Rebecca Wetzel (from consulting firm NetForecast) asked Riverbed Steelhead customers and Cisco WAAS customers to share their experiences using the vendors' technologies, dozens of readers responded.

Here are some of the highlights from Riverbed Steelhead users:

One employee at a Fortune 500 company in the oil and gas industry writes: “We currently have 150 [Steelhead] devices and are deploying more every month. The advantages to deploying Steelhead devices in locations with limited and costly bandwidth have proved a cost savings and value to our company from day 1 of implementing. The ease of use and scalability of the Steelheads offers large to small locations the ability to implement the technology, not to mention being able to reuse the devices when a project ends and another begins.”

Another reader, “JJ,” says Riverbed’s devices sped up the time it takes to ship SQL logs for its SAP backups across the WAN: “Pre-Riverbed the jobs sometimes would run for more than an hour. Post-Riverbed it rarely takes longer than five minutes.” When the IT department moved its file and print servers from a plant to company headquarters, Riverbed’s technology kept those services running smoothly, even over the WAN. “…people asked us why we didn't move it on schedule. They saw no difference in accessing network shares than they did before the move and thought we hadn't done it yet,” JJ writes. “If you're looking to replace remote servers, don't. Pop in a few of these devices and your life will be a lot easier.”

Michael O'Brien (identity not verified) writes that Steelheads are the backbone of his network, which spans offices in Ankara, Turkey; Belgrade, Serbia; Berlin; Bratislava, Slovakia; Brussels; Bucharest, Romania; Paris; and Washington, D.C. “Some of these locations have poor Internet service -- with latency up to 350ms in some places… Having Internet connections fast enough to equal the performance I get from the Steelheads would be cost prohibitive. The price of each appliance in each office is easily less than one year's ISP payments for a connection of equal speed,” he writes. O'Brien also says Riverbed’s service and support are stellar. “To have a product with this level of service and quality makes it a no-brainer decision for me. I know I sound a bit biased and I am -- when a product makes you a hero in your organization, you are happy to put in a good word.”

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