Blue Coat Vs Riverbed Wan Optimization PDF

WAN Optimisation Test
Blue Coat vs. Riverbed
A Broadband-Testing Report
By Steve Broadhead, Founder & Director, BB-T
WAN OptimisationTest Report
First published March 2011 (V1.0)
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WAN Optimisation Test Report
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ 1
BROADBAND-TESTING ..................................................................................... 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................... 4
INTRODUCTION: OPTIMISING THE WAN MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER ...... 7
TEST OVERVIEW ............................................................................................... 8
Products In This Report ............................................................................ 8
How The Technology Is Applied ............................................................... 10
PUT TO THE TEST: WAN OPTIMISATION......................................................... 13
Our Test Bed ........................................................................................ 13
Test 1: Video ........................................................................................ 14
Test 2: WAFS/File Transfer Tests ............................................................. 22
Test 3: Email ........................................................................................ 25
Test 4: FTP .......................................................................................... 26
Test 5: Web-based Applications - SharePoint............................................. 27
Test 6: Microsoft Cloud-based SharePoint ................................................. 30
Test 7: Web Application Test Salesforce.com .......................................... 35
SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................... 37
Figure 1 Overall Results Summary .....................................................................................................................................6
Figure 2 Blue Coat MACH5 SG600 .....................................................................................................................................8
Figure 3 Riverbed Steelhead 1050 .....................................................................................................................................9
Figure 4 - Our Test Bed .................................................................................................................................................... 13
Figure 5 Baseline Video Test: 10 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 14
Figure 6 Device Video Test: 10 Streams ........................................................................................................................... 14
Figure 8 Device Video Test: 20 Streams ........................................................................................................................... 16
Figure 10 Device Video Test: 30 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 17
Figure 11 Baseline Video Test: 30 Streams ....................................................................................................................... 17
Figure 12 Device Video Test: 50 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 18
Figure 13 Riverbed Video Test: 50 Streams Errors .......................................................................................................... 18
Figure 14 Baseline Video Test: 100 Streams ..................................................................................................................... 19
Figure 15 Blue Coat Video Test: 100 Streams ................................................................................................................... 19
Figure 16 Blue Coat Video Test: 100 Streams Bandwidth Reduction Achieved..................................................................... 20
Figure 17 Blue Coat Video Test: 500 Streams Bandwidth Reduction Achieved..................................................................... 20
Broadband-Testing 1995-2011 1
Figure 18 Cisco WAFS Benchmark ................................................................................................................................... 22
Figure 19 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Open .................................................................................................. 23
Figure 20 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Save .................................................................................................. 23
Figure 21 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Open ............................................................................................... 24
Figure 22 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Save ................................................................................................ 24
Figure 23 Email Test: Bandwidth Usage ........................................................................................................................... 25
Figure 24 FTP Test: Time Taken To Complete Transfer ...................................................................................................... 26
Figure 25 SharePoint 2007: Cold Runs ............................................................................................................................ 27
Figure 26 SharePoint 2007: Warm Runs .......................................................................................................................... 28
Figure 27 SharePoint 2010: Cold Runs ............................................................................................................................ 29
Figure 28 SharePoint 2010: Warm Runs .......................................................................................................................... 30
Figure 29 - Hub and Spoke topology .................................................................................................................................. 31
Figure 30 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Cold Run ...................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 31 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Warm Run .................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 32 - Branch Office to Cloud via Direct Internet Connection .......................................................................................... 33
Figure 33 SharePoint Cloud Service, Branch Office to Cloud via Direct Internet Connection, Cold ............................................ 33
Figure 34 - SharePoint Cloud Service, Branch Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet, WARM Run........................................... 34
Figure 35 Branch Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet: Cold Run .................................................................................. 35
Figure 36 Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet: Warm Run .......................................................................................... 36
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
As the networking world becomes more distributed, so the need for LAN-type
performance across the WAN becomes ever more important. The reality is that
people are finally working in a more flexible fashion, geographically. But
regardless of where they are based head office, branch office or even working
from home they rightly expect to be able to use the same set of applications
and services. With more types of applications travelling on the same WAN link,
connecting more offices and more users its inevitable that performance suffers
due to latency, congestion and bandwidth limitations.
Not only do traditional enterprise applications and services need optimising, but
applications such as streaming video and cloud-delivered SaaS applications are
becoming increasingly important in the enterprise and are competing for that
same bandwidth. They need predictable, quality performance as well, video
especially.
To see if the existing WAN optimisation hardware is capable of delivering on these
requirements, we tested comparable Blue Coat MACH5 SG600 and Riverbed
Steelhead 1050 products. We created a test bed using real traffic across a
simulated WAN link (using typical bandwidth and latency settings). Our
application selection for testing was based on typical usage patterns and included
video, CIFS/file transfer, FTP, email, web-based SharePoint collaboration,
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Salesforce.com. We ran
multiple tests simulating both cold and warm runs. Cold runs mean the data has
never been seen by the optimisation device before; warm runs indicate that the
device has seen that data previously, meaning that various cache mechanisms
are warm and can deliver greater performance benefit.
We found that, when testing with traditional applications such as Microsoft file
shares over CIFS, FTP, and email, performance between both vendors was
relatively even with some small advantages for each vendor in different
situations. When it came to the fast growing applications like web-based apps,
video and Cloud/SaaS, however, Blue Coat performed significantly better than
Riverbed.
For SharePoint, tested as an internally deployed web application (SharePoint
operates over HTTP/SSL with an HTML browser interface to the user) the cold
results were relatively even between the two vendors. On warm runs, however,
Blue Coat performed significantly better an average of 5x better than Riverbed
across the board.
Our email test showed relatively even performance for both parties: 96%
bandwidth reduction for Riverbed and 97% for Blue Coat.

We also tested Microsofts cloud-based SharePoint service that is delivered over
the Internet in two different ways: symmetric and asymmetric. First, with
symmetric WAN optimisation (assumes data travels into Internet link, across data
centre WAN optimisation device, then across the WAN to a branch) the cold run
results were reasonably similar between both vendors; Blue Coat clearly beat
Riverbed on warm runs.
In the second test case, where cloud-based SharePoint was accessed directly
from a branch office, via the Internet, Riverbed did not provide any optimisation.
Blue Coat, however, showed extensive performance and bandwidth improvements
an average of 40x faster performance - with just the single appliance in a onearmed topology a significant benefit.
Looking at another cloud application, connecting over an HTTPS session, our
Salesforce.com testing highlighted the very significant limitation of the Riverbed
product that Blue Coat is able to overcome. Of the two, only the Blue Coat
technology was capable of actually accelerating from the cold runs, with
everything being accessed instantly, while Riverbed showed no optimisation
whatsoever. This can be explained by only Blue Coat being able to decrypt (then
re-encrypt) the SSL traffic stream at the edge device and the fact that it can
optimise in one-armed mode. Since it doesnt require the head end device (data
centre WAN optimisation controller) to be always in place to decrypt SSL traffic
(i.e. to know the private keys at both ends of the connection) it can therefore
intercept and optimise that traffic. However, the Riverbed solution is clearly
unable to do this something that is well documented already.
In the fastest growing, and arguably biggest component of network traffic today
video Blue Coat dominated. While Riverbed was able to raise the number of
concurrent streams to 30 across our simulated WAN link before generating client
errors, it still consumed the entire link at just 20 clients, with no room for other
applications. Blue Coat was able to service 30 streams with no problems, using
only 30% of the link for a period of time plenty of bandwidth for other
applications - then winding down to almost no bandwidth for the majority of the 6
minutes. This characteristic continued with 50, 100 and even 500 client streams.
Even then, they consumed an average of only 5-10% of the link 30% at the
start up of the video then almost no bandwidth. What this means is that Blue
Coat allowed for plenty of room on the link for other applications, where Riverbed
could not, even then it was using minimal bandwidth.

Applying a performance index to each element of our testing, based on the amount of
test data in each case, we see that, in comparison with our 1.0 baseline, Riverbed clearly
provides some optimisation benefits but Blue Coat is significantly out in front, thanks to
its superior performance in a number of key test areas, as weve outlined above.
Figure 1 Overall Results Summary
INTRODUCTION: OPTIMISING THE WAN MORE

IMPORTANT THAN EVER
As the networking world becomes more distributed, so the need for LAN-type
performance across the WAN becomes ever more important.
The reality is that people are finally working in a more flexible fashion, geographically.
But regardless of where they are based head office, branch office or even working
from home they rightly expect to be able to use the same set of applications and
services wherever they are. Logical enough but available bandwidth changes
significantly from location to location, especially in an international context. And,
regardless of bandwidth availability, unless the link is a well-managed, point-to-point
connection, issues such as latency will always arise. Throwing bandwidth at a problem
has never been the answer.
According to a new report from TeleGeography, streaming media now accounts for
18% of worldwide Internet traffic, and, together with other video-heavy applications,
comprises 52% of worldwide Internet traffic. However, Gartners VP of Research, Joe
Skorupa, believes there is a problem here whereby companies want to use more live
video internally and contend with video from the web, yet both can undermine
seemingly well-designed networks. Here, technologies such as video caching can help
and they need to.
External video on the WAN frequently consumes large amounts of the bandwidth at
various times, frequently slowing or even stopping business-critical applications from
functioning properly. Traditional WAN optimisation solutions that rely on generalpurpose acceleration technologies alone are believed to be not enough to remedy
sluggish application performance on lower bandwidth links, especially as a result of the
increasingly heavy video traffic.
Meantime, web-based collaboration also continues to increase and brings with it
another heavy drain on bandwidth resources. At the same time, the traditional
applications havent gone away, even if they are changing in structure from traditional
client-server to cloud-based/SaaS models. So, in an enterprise context, we are looking
at supporting a huge number of widely varying application and service types from
traditional enterprise applications such as database, file transfer, backup and email,
though Internet generation services such as Salesforce.com and desktop collaboration
contribute to this significant increase in video usage.
While many companies appear to still consider some form of WAN optimisation to be a
luxury, we argue that it is now an absolute necessity. Fundamentally, why would
anyone not want to optimise all their connections (unless youre in the game of selling
bandwidth)? We are moving beyond that nice to have moment into the must have
era, thanks to the onslaught of video, Internet-based collaboration and other
applications that demand low latency and sufficient performance levels.
Here, best effort is not enough so traditional QoS is not enough either. The question
is, just how flexible are WAN optimisation products at optimising very different types of
applications and are all solutions made equal? Here we put these points to the test,
focusing on comparing Blue Coats newly released MACH5 SG600 to Riverbeds current
1050-L.
Latency: The Performance Problem In 2011

While there is always talk of the era of unlimited bandwidth, this simply isnt true. We
regularly witness poor file service performance, suffer from excessive Internet
backhaul, slow SSL-encrypted and cloud-based SaaS applications and an inability to
use thick-client applications over the WAN. Throw in the aforementioned issue with
video and we see that the traditional approach to problem solving more bandwidth
is ineffective, since most networks are now bound by a more fundamental limitation:
latency. In response, many IT organisations have begun to evaluate specialised
solutions that can accelerate application delivery by overcoming latency and expanding
throughput. However, many of these solutions address only part of the overall mix of
challenges. A comprehensive solution should support all key enterprise business
applications regardless of whether they are webified, rich media or plain text, hosted
internally or externally, or encrypted or unencrypted. Ideally, such a solution should
make decisions based on the user, not just the application or source server. In
addition, it is important to consider support for future WAN architectures for example,
a mix of MPLS with direct-to-Internet branch office connectivity.
TEST OVERVIEW
Products In This Report
To compare WAN Optimisation performance, we tested comparable products from Blue
Coat (the MACH5 SG600) and Riverbed (the Steelhead 1050). In each test case, both
devices were optimally configured for the tests.
Blue Coat MACH5 SG600
Figure 2 Blue Coat MACH5 SG600
The MACH5 SG600 is just one in a complete family of appliances, virtual appliances and
mobile software clients focused on WAN optimisation.
Blue Coat supports a full range of optimisation for collaboration, file sharing, email,
storage, backup and disaster recovery. In addition, Blue Coat has integrated specialised
technologies to optimise web-based applications and video over HTTP/SSL, as well as
video optimisation for RTMP (Adobe Flash), MMS and RTSP (Microsoft Windows Media
Server).

The resulting product claims to not only reduce bandwidth by 50-99% for optimised
applications; customer case studies demonstrate the ability to accelerate end-user
performance for applications like SharePoint by 300x and to massively scale bandwidth
for video delivery (a claim borne out in the tests as we shall see).
It should be noted that the MACH5 can be software key upgraded to add integrated
Secure Web Gateway functionality, including web categorising, content filtering, web
usage reporting, malware protection, ICAP services and much more. That is an extra
charge, but enables interesting possibilities for locations that want direct, safe Internet
access.
Riverbed Steelhead 1050
Figure 3 Riverbed Steelhead 1050
The Steelhead 1050 is part of a range of physical and virtual appliances from Riverbed.
Supported applications for acceleration include file sharing (CIFS and NFS), Exchange
(MAPI), Lotus Notes, web (HTTP- and HTTPS-based applications), database (MS SQL and
Oracle), and disaster recovery. Riverbed claims the Steelhead can cut bandwidth usage
typically by 60-95% while offering real-time visibility into application and WAN
performance.
How The Technology Is Applied

General WAN Optimisation Concepts
When remote users access centralised applications, there are two main problems that
WAN optimisation aims to solve bandwidth and latency. Bandwidth becomes a problem
because users and systems are pulling everything over a narrow WAN link 1MB files,
Excel spreadsheets, 4MB PowerPoint presentations, videos measured in gigabytes, and
data backups measured often in terabytes. With hundreds of applications and recreational
Internet access, bandwidth is heavily taxed. Latency is the amount of delay from point A
to point B. When coupled with protocols that require hundreds or thousands of chats
across the link, performance can suffer tremendously. Even with infinite bandwidth
available, protocol chattiness needs to be overcome. Enter WAN optimisation. Data
reduction techniques like caching (at the byte data stream level) and compression reduce
bandwidth required. Protocol accelerations remove the impact of latency for TCP as well
as numerous application protocols.
Video
Video seems to be an area where the vendors depart a bit. Riverbed doesnt document
any specialised optimisation techniques for video traffic. Its compression and caching
techniques provide the optimisation, and, as we will see in the test results, provide
limited value. Blue Coat uses send once, serve many stream-splitting technology that
includes support for Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) on the Adobe Flash Platform
and Microsoft Windows Media MMS- and RTSP-based streaming media, including
Silverlight. This capability is designed to scale video and reduce the strain on the most
constrained portion of enterprise networks the Internet gateway or WAN link.
In addition to optimisation and delivery of live video, MACH5 SG appliances can optimise,
scale and minimise the impact of on-demand video from the web or internal sources over
HTTP, SSL, RTMP, RTSP or MMS. On-demand video, including progressively downloaded
video using a Flash platform such as YouTube, is stored or cached locally at the branch
office after the first person requests it. Subsequent viewers can access the content locally
without impacting the WAN. In addition, internal content can be distributed automatically,
typically at night when network usage is low, to avoid straining the WAN during peak
business activity. The MACH5 technology can also be used to minimise the impact of
video floods, where employees watching live video events over the web (e.g. breaking
news, major events) saturate WAN links and prevent business-critical applications from
operating. Bandwidth usage is reduced via caching and stream splitting.
FTP
FTP transfers over large bandwidth networks can be massively accelerated with TCP
optimisations and compression, while repeat file transfers can benefit from byte
caching/sequence reduction. FTP traffic usually contains compressible and repetitive
elements that respond extremely well to byte caching and compression technologies to
significantly reduce overall data transferred. Both Riverbed and Blue Coat solutions also
provide the optimisations, as well as the ability to employ bandwidth management/QoS
for any class of FTP and other traffic to be appropriately prioritised in alignment with the
needs of the user.
10

For example, FTP traffic can be given maximum priority at night when an offline
replication must complete, but be given secondary priority in the daytime when user
productivity is paramount.
Email
Email systems and applications, such as Microsoft Exchange 2007 and 2010, recognising
the needs of the modern, distributed organisation have developed synchronization and
optimisation improvements to enhance the end-user experience and minimise bandwidth
requirements. While these new features help address some of the issues introduced by
latency and bandwidth limitations, users in branch offices still suffer poor performance.
WAN Optimization provides an end-to-end acceleration solution to improve performance
and response times, reduce and prioritise bandwidth usage, and significantly reduce the
time to complete email operations.
The optimisations in Exchange 2007, as well as Exchange 2010, along with protocol
improvements in MAPI, are not enough to give users in branch offices a smooth and
problem-free experience. Even though Cached Exchange Mode allows remote users to
remain productive by working offline, it does not address the WAN latency and bandwidth
limitations that degrade performance for mail that must still be sent and received.
Using byte caching and compression technologies, as well as protocol acceleration for
MAPI, both the Blue Coat and Riverbed solutions are designed to help reduce redundant
data and attachments, while it is claimed that batching and pre-population provides users
with a LAN-like experience when downloading email. Additionally, both solutions provide
the ability to employ bandwidth management/QoS, allowing for any class of traffic to be
prioritised, ensuring that email services remain reliable.
MS Office
MS Office files are typically stored on a centrally located file server available to groups of
users to facilitate collaboration. To open, save and manage documents between the users
computer and the server, Microsoft uses the Common Internet File System protocol
(CIFS) for Wide Area Files Services (WAFS). When Microsoft Office attempts to interact
with files on a server across a WAN, the performance and user experience suffer
considerably.
CIFS, by design, makes hundreds or thousands of round-trips between the client and
server and therefore is particularly sensitive to latency. Worse, Microsoft Office
applications expect files will be accessible quickly and respond poorly to latency-induced
delay. Blue Coat and Riverbed technology is designed to accelerate and optimise all MS
Office applications, and more generally, any application that relies on the CIFS protocol
by reducing latency while increasing WAN throughput.
They do this using many specific techniques, such as read ahead, write back, and
directory meta-caching. Each technique is designed to overcome the performance
shortcomings of using the CIFS protocol over the WAN.
In addition to protocol optimisation and byte-level caching, compression technologies, in
combination with TCP enhancements and bandwidth management are designed to further

improve and accelerate any CIFS application. Most MS Office files, whether it is Word,
Excel, or PowerPoint contain compressible and repetitive elements that respond extremely
well to byte caching/sequence reduction and compression technologies.
MS Office SharePoint
Office SharePoint Server provides good collaborative functionality, but WAN links and
degraded performance have discouraged users from adopting the software and processes.
To assist with uptake, both Riverbed and Blue Coat provides an end-to-end acceleration
solution designed to regain performance, minimise bandwidth usage and significantly
reduce the time to complete all SharePoint Server operations, whether it is for
information or content management, collaboration and workflow, or the integration of
customer and partner information during the proposal process. It seems that some of
Blue Coats technologies for HTTP and SSL provide quite a bit of extra optimisation
benefit, judging from how they outperformed Riverbed for warm reads of SharePoint.
12
PUT TO THE TEST: WAN OPTIMISATION

Our Test Bed
Figure 4 - Our Test Bed
Our test bed simulated a classic office environment.

Using virtual machines, we created a set of clients that attached directly to each of the
WAN optimisation products we had under test. We used a WAN simulator to enforce
bandwidth and latency typical for an Internet connection. At the other side of the WAN
link were the second in the pair of each product under test. These attached directly to our
set of applications used to test the devices with, each on a virtual machine.
To provide some level of compatibility between different tests, we created a file set that
we were able to use in many of our test scenarios. This was based on a real-world mix of
Office and general file types including .doc, .xls, and .ppt in various file sizes, as follows:
1340k.doc
7108k.doc
1100k.xls
500k.ppt
3500k.ppt
268KB
1372KB
7108KB
1108KB
256KB
464KB
3568KB
Our testing covered video, WAFS/CIFS, email, FTP, collaborative and web applications.
Test 1: Video
For the video testing, we used Microsofts Windows Media Load Simulator. Setting our
WAN simulator to a T1 (1.544Mbps) bandwidth limit with 100ms latency to create a realworld scenario, we began by loading to a maximum of 10, then 20 concurrent clients,
then 30, then 50 and finally 100, depending on the ability of the device under test to cope
with that number of video streams. We monitored and measured bandwidth utilisation at
each step. Tests were run over a 350 second period.
Figure 5 Baseline Video Test: 10 Streams
Figure 6 Device Video Test: 10 Streams
14

Our starting point was a vanilla baseline run across a non-optimised link with just 10
video clients. Checking bandwidth usage at this point we observed around the 1.544Mbps
of constant inbound bandwidth utilisation as the ceiling of our link was hit with relatively
minimal outbound utilisation.
Testing each of our devices under the same test conditions we found very different
behavioural characteristics from each of the WAN optimisation devices.
The Riverbed device fluctuated constantly between around 25-70% utilisation obviously
a symptom its video handling technique while Blue Coat peaked at around 30% for the
first 80 seconds of the test then consumed almost zero inbound bandwidth clearly the
video is already fully in the object cache by then and being served locally.
BaselineLinkUtilisation
20Clientsover350seconds
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
60.00%
Incoming video from 20 clients

consume entire inbound link,
no room for other traffic
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Moving onto sustaining 20 video streams, our baseline is as above, with a very similar
pattern to our 10-stream test.
Comparing this baseline with our device tests, again we see some very interesting
bandwidth usage patterns. The Riverbed Steelhead is largely pegged at maximum
bandwidth utilisation throughout the test. Blue Coat peaked between 25-30% utilisation
until all the video was stored in the object cache and then served locally again.
Moving to 30 client streams, the pattern continued as before. Blue Coat was able to
rapidly cache and serve the video to multiple clients directly from the branch device,
while Riverbed required constant communication between the head and branch. With 20
clients all pulling the same video at the same time, the WAN link was quickly saturated.
Not so for Blue Coat WAN bandwidth utilisation was between 20-30% until the entire
video was cached, then dropped to near zero even while continuing to serve 20 clients.
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
0
50
100
150
200
250
16
300
350
Again we found inbound bandwidth pegged throughout the test by our WAN limit and the
Riverbed device. As we approached 30 streams, the Riverbed 1050 completely filled the
available bandwidth, eventually resulting in the load test software straining to establish
new streams. Again we saw Blue Coats superior performance with no additional
bandwidth requirement than when running 10 and 20 stream tests.
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
At 50 clients, we saw huge numbers of errors being recorded by the Riverbed device (see
illustration below of Riverbed device under test below).
Again, this is appears to be due to the bandwidth limits of our WAN link being hit early in
the test with no ability to optimise that bandwidth significantly enough to support large
numbers of video streams.
Figure 13 Riverbed Video Test: 50 Streams Errors
At this point only the Blue Coat device was capable of potentially supporting more
streams, so we reran the test again with 100 concurrent video clients.
18
120.00%
100.00%
80.00%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
0.00%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
The pattern was exactly as before, minimal outbound utilisation still and a short period of
30% or so utilisation, followed by almost zero utilisation inbound. We were able to sustain
100 concurrent video streams and there were no indications that adding more would hurt
performance in any way.
Figure 15 Blue Coat Video Test: 100 Streams
At most, the Blue Coat device used significantly less than half of the available WAN
bandwidth and effectively none once the entire video had been placed in the object cache.

Cross-checking this against the SG600 management interface we saw near 100%
bandwidth reduction achieved courtesy of the video going straight into the object cache
of the Blue Coat device.
Figure 16 Blue Coat Video Test: 100 Streams Bandwidth Reduction Achieved
Finally, we decided to roll the dice and test Blue Coats SG600 with 500 video streams.
That test saw successful delivery of on-demand video streams to 500 clients. Again,
utilization was about 30-35% of bandwidth at the start of the video, and then took
almost no bandwidth for the last two thirds of the time.
Blue Coat delivered 500 video streams over a T-1 with plenty of bandwidth available for
other applications. That discovery shows significant optimization results.
Figure 17 Blue Coat Video Test: 500 Streams Bandwidth Reduction Achieved
20

So why are these results significant? Weve already mentioned that video is the fastest
growing application and therefore traffic generator on the network today, so it is
essential to be able to optimise it.
Why is it so popular? Online training videos are increasingly popular, as is video as part
of collaborative working. Add these enterprise applications to the growing use of video
for entertainment and in social networking as an accepted form of work-related
interchange in many companies, as well as for casual use, and the scale of the growth
in video across the network is a clear challenge for businesses and network providers
alike.
Put simply, if you cant optimise video, your network connections and other applications
are going to suffer.
Test 2: WAFS/File Transfer Tests

For the WAFS/CIFS test we used our Office file mix as defined earlier, in combination with
Ciscos WAFS Benchmark Tool for Microsoft Office Applications, to again create a totally
independent test platform for these devices.
This measures response times for basic file operations (open, save, close) when using a
Microsoft Office application (such as Word, PowerPoint or Excel). The benchmark executes
a scripted set of operations and measures the time it takes to complete them.
Figure 18 Cisco WAFS Benchmark
The operations were repeated for the different MS Office file types and sizes we created,
as described earlier, with our default WAN simulator settings in place and repeated our
tests over multiple iterations.
We started with cold run testing, ensuring caches and every element were cleared before
running the tests, first a file open operation, then a save and then a close. Across the cold
runs, performance was relatively similar between all devices.
22
Figure 19 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Open
Figure 20 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Save
On the file open tests, Riverbed delivered significant optimisation, though we did note
with some additional Excel file tests (not shown) it was significantly slower across all runs
than the others. On the file save tests, Riverbed tended to edge many tests.
WARMTimetoOpenOfficeDocument
19.3
1340k.doc
3.5
3.5
7108k.doc
4.0
3.6
67.1
Baseline
21.6
1100k.xls
RiverbedWarm
3.4
3.5
BlueCoatWarm
22.7
500k.ppt
3.5
3.4
3500k.ppt
3.7
3.5
50.3
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
Figure 21 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Open
WARMSAVETimeforOfficeDocument
22.8
1340k.doc
5.0
5.4
7108k.doc
5.1
7.1
Baseline
21.2
1100k.xls
RiverbedWarm
4.8
5.1
BlueCoatWarm
20.4
500k.ppt
5.0
5.4
45.9
3500k.ppt
5.1
6.4
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
Figure 22 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Save
Our warm test runs again showed a relatively close level of performance between both
vendors, file saves showing a larger margin than compared to file open. Depending on the
actual file involved, the results were between 5-30% with most results inside a 10%
margin.
24

Riverbeds performance was generally strong with best times in many file/action
combinations across all tests.
Test 3: Email
For our email test we used our Office file set as attachments and monitored a series of
cold then warm runs with each test device using a pair of Outlook clients and Exchange
server across our WAN simulator.
We found that both the Riverbed and Blue Coat devices were able to significantly further
optimise the email attachments on a warm run. For the cold, Blue Coat recorded 8.26%
and Riverbed 10% optimisation. On the warm run, Riverbed improved significantly to
96% bandwidth optimisation. However, Blue Coat was still better with an excellent
97.81% bandwidth optimisation.
In terms of bandwidth utilisation given our 1.544Mbps link - this translates to Riverbed
utilising an average of 6kbps while Blue Coat required on average 4.9kbps to send each
of our test documents. Obviously, the native compressibility of each document was the
significant factor in the cold runs but once a document was cached, the MACH5 was more
efficient at sending the attachments.
100.0%
100.0%
92.0%
90.0%
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0%
4.0%
3.0%
0.0%
Baseline
RiverbedCold/Warm
BlueCoatCold/Warm
Figure 23 Email Test: Bandwidth Usage
Test 4: FTP
For our FTP tests we again took our Office file set and our default WAN simulator settings
of 1.544Mbit and 100ms round-trip-time and created an FTP client-server connection. We
downloaded all of the files used for the WAFS Benchmark and summarised the results.
We ran a number of cold runs, resulting in a baseline time of 230 seconds to complete the
transfers. We then performed several warm run iterations and averaged these out to
produce the results as shown in the graph below, with transfer times measured in
seconds.
We found Blue Coat to be faster than Riverbed on both the cold and warm runs, about
17% faster cold, 30% faster on the warm. This is classic optimisation territory and each
device provided significant savings over baseline, with Blue Coat taking the ultimate
honours here.
ColdandWarmTimetoTransferFTPFile
9.0Warm
BlueCoat
128.0Cold
13.0Warm
Riverbed
155.0Cold
BASELINE
230.0
0.0
100.0
200.0
Figure 24 FTP Test: Time Taken To Complete Transfer
26
Test 5: Web-based Applications - SharePoint

Collaboration has shifted largely to web-based protocols, HTTP and SSL. It has gone
through the hype cycle and out into the real world as a much-used service/application
right now.
TestFiles
13MB.mp3
7108K.doc
500K.ppt
3.5MB.ppt
300K.docx
Here we start with still a classic end-to-end, client-server setup, deployed

and operated within the enterprise, using our default WAN simulation
settings and testing with Microsofts SharePoint 2007 and 2010.
For this test we have extended our file set to include .mp3 and .txt files, in
addition to our Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents. Given that
SharePoint users tend to exchange barely changed files regularly, the
2MB.txt
ability to optimise this traffic is critical, both in the kind of end-to-end
11.34MB.doc
scenario we have here and in a live Internet environment (see BPOS testing
1.1MB.xls
section next, for example) where bandwidth and latency may vary
enormously from user to user involved in the collaborative workspace.
Figure 25 SharePoint 2007: Cold Runs

Starting with SharePoint 2007 cold runs (see above), we see generally consistent
performance between both products, some marginally quicker than the other in certain
tests, but nothing significant in the real world.
Neither device was able to improve baseline performance on the pre-compressed .mp3
file or on the (pre-compressed graphic-heavy) 3.5MB PowerPoint but, in most cases,
some optimisation could be applied, even on a cold run.
Figure 26 SharePoint 2007: Warm Runs
On the warm runs we see significant optimisation from both vendors, but Blue Coat still
dominated with near-instant transfer times in all cases - a good level of performance all
round.
We then switched our attention to SharePoint 2010 (see next page) and reran cold and
warm test runs with the same configuration as before. Again, on the cold runs we found
largely consistent performance, but with Riverbed just shading many of the tests. On
warms runs, Blue Coat again emerged on top, albeit not quite as clearly as with
SharePoint 2007, but consistently so across all tests.
28

Overall we were very happy with the level of performance we saw in the SharePoint tests
itself a significant application for 2011 and beyond.
The question now is, when we move to an Internet-based model, without our controlled
end-to-end test setup, especially when running secure web applications, will the pattern
still follow? Read on to find out
MicrosoftSharePoint2010COLDRUNS
74.5
77.4
76.4
13MB.mp3
2.9
2.9
3.6
300k.docx
2MB.txt
4.6
5.0
1340k.doc
4.2
5.5
7108k.doc
12.5
8.3
BASELINE
39.7
9.1
9.6
RiverbedCold
BlueCoatCold
3.3
1.9
2.7
500k.ppt
20.3
19.6
21.7
3500k.ppt
1100k.xls
2.3
2.9
0.0
6.8
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
Figure 27 SharePoint 2010: Cold Runs
MicrosoftSharePoint2010WARMRUNS
1.4
13MB.mp3
0.8
0.8
300k.docx
0.5
0.9
2MB.txt
0.6
0.9
1340k.doc
0.6
RiverbedWarm
1.2
7108k.doc
0.7
BlueCoatWarm
0.8
500k.ppt
0.5
1.0
3500k.ppt
0.6
0.8
1100k.xls
0.6
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
Figure 28 SharePoint 2010: Warm Runs
Test 6: Microsoft Cloud-based SharePoint

Microsoft provides SharePoint as a cloud-delivered application as well. The Business
Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) is a set of messaging and collaboration tools, delivered
as a subscription service that provides Office/collaboration-type tools without the need to
deploy and maintain software and hardware on the premises true SaaS in other words.
The suite includes MS Exchange Online for email and calendaring, MS SharePoint Online
for portals and document sharing, MS Office Communications for presence availability,
instant messaging, and peer-to-peer audio calls and Office Live Meeting for web and video
conferencing. Its what analysts are calling the future of IT, so the ability to optimise this
type of service is critical going forward.
This application test meant going live onto the Internet and involved some small file
transfers. In order to make the results more measurable and meaningful, we pegged the
bandwidth at 512Kbps still a common access speed in Europe, especially for branch
offices and SMBs.
30
1.6

How a branch office actually reaches an SaaS provider is a matter of deployment
preference. On the one hand, it is possible to utilise a full hub-and-spoke topology, where
all Internet-bound traffic is backhauled through a corporate-controlled data centre, and
then from there routed out to the Internet proper.
Figure 29 - Hub and Spoke topology
The other approach is a branch office connected directly to the Internet (what well refer
to as Direct-to-Internet; each branch office is able to route traffic to the company data
centre as well as maintaining a direct connection to the Internet as provided by their local
ISP or via an MPLS split tunnel design. Each WAN optimisation vendor integrates
differently between these two approaches.
Riverbed must be deployed in a hub-and-spoke environment, where all traffic from each
branch passes through the single hub of the data centre.
Blue Coat, while supporting the hub-and-spoke topology, also supports an asymmetric
approach where Internet access is provided at the endpoint by the local ISP or MPLS split
tunnel a branch-to-Internet solution.
As a consequence of these differing philosophies, each test has been run twice: Once with
hub-and-spoke, and again with the branch office directly connected to the Internet. See
graphs on the next two pages.
In the hub-and-spoke topology, while the cold run results were reasonably similar
between our vendors, on several of the warm runs Blue Coat left Riverbed behind. Blue
Coat was significantly quicker than Riverbed when transferring the large PowerPoint file
(3500K.ppt), as well as the large (and highly compressible) 7108k Word document. As
the file sizes increased, Blue Coat was consistently faster.
BPOSHubandSpokeCOLD
3.0
2.2
2.0
250k.doc
1340k.doc
21.3
9.0
9.3
7108k.doc
116.3
24.7
27.0
1100k.xls
17.3
4.0
3.7
500k.xls
1.0
1.0
Baseline
7.0
RiverbedCold
BlueCoatCold
3.0
1.0
1.0
250k.ppt
500k.ppt
7.0
7.7
13.3
58.0
57.7
56.0
3500k.ppt
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
120.0
Figure 30 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Cold Run
BPOSHubandSpokeWARM
2.7
1340k.doc
1.0
17.0
7108k.doc
1.5
1.7
1100k.xls
1.0
RiverbedWarm
1.0
1.0
500k.xls
BlueCoatWarm
1.5
1.0
500k.ppt
8.0
3500k.ppt
1.5
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
Figure 31 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Warm Run
The results from the Hub-and-Spoke configuration showed both vendors optimising the
download by several factors.
32
18.0
Figure 32 - Branch Office to Cloud via Direct Internet Connection
Where the branch offices were connected directly to the Internet, however, the results
were a very different story. Without an upstream device to assist in compressing the file,
every vendor was at the mercy of the uplink speed again, using a common 512Kbps line
with 100ms latency.
The download speeds on the Direct-to-Internet cold run are all hovering just around the
same times as the baseline, indicating that no single vendor can improve performance.
MSFTBPOSBranchOfficetoCloudviaDirectInternetConnectionCOLD
22.0
21.7
21.0
1340k.doc
121.3
116.3
116.7
7108k.doc
17.0
17.7
17.7
1100k.xs
Baseline
6.3
7.0
7.0
500k.xls
RiverbedCold
13.0
13.2
13.7
500k.ppt
BlueCoatCold
58.0
58.2
57.7
3500k.ppt
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
120.0
Figure 33 SharePoint Cloud Service, Branch Office to Cloud via Direct Internet Connection, Cold

Comparatively, each performed equally no real optimisation on the Direct-to-Internet
cold transfer. This is understandable, unfortunate as it may seem, as the bulk of
optimisation offerings require a device at either end of a connection to provide
compression and caching.
The warm results exhibited a marked advantage for Blue Coat but not so for Riverbed.
With the data centre device removed from the network path, the SG600 showed its ability
to optimise Internet and cloud SAAS traffic, whereas the Riverbed Steelhead showed
effectively no improvement over baseline. On average, Blue Coats SG600 was able to
serve the warm file in just around one second.
Again, the ability of Blue Coat to provide optimisation where other vendors struggle is
apparent (see graph below). This is proving to be a consistent benefit in many of our
tests, notably those that are forward-looking. We will now move into a completely
Internet-based scenario, testing with Salesforce.com.
MSFTBPOSBranchOfficetoCloudviaDirectInternetConnectionWARM
22.0
22.0
1340k.doc
1.0
121.3
116.0
7108k.doc
1.3
17.0
16.7
1100k.xs
1.0
500k.xls
1.0
6.3
7.0
Baseline
RiverbedWarm
500k.ppt
1.0
13.0
14.0
BlueCoatWarm
58.0
58.0
3500k.ppt
1.2
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
120.0
Figure 34 - SharePoint Cloud Service, Branch Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet, WARM Run
34
Test 7: Web Application Test Salesforce.com

One of the great web application successes of the past few years is Salesforce.com once
ahead of its time but now a model application/SaaS for the future.
Salesforce.com is used to manage customer information and sales opportunities. Certain
uses and workflows may not benefit from optimization technologies. There are many use
cases, however, where large amounts of data are transferred, and, often, on a repetitive
basis. Reporting dashboards are commonly accessed by multiple users; in addition, data
dumps, documents and other large queries and downloads are also common (and can be
the most performance constrained use cases of Salesforce.com). For this reason the
ability to optimise this kind of environment is critical from our perspective. We created a
secure (https) connection across the Internet as before and carried out a series of file
transfers using a variation on our file set, including text, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and .csv
file types.
SFDCBranchOfficetoCloudviaDirectInternetConnectionCOLD
5.0
5.0
5.0
300K.doc
35.0
35.0
2MB.txt
2.0
1340k.doc
18.0
1100k.xls
6.0
22.0
22.0
Baseline
RiverbedCold
17.0
17.0
BlueCoatCold
7.0
7.0
500k.ppt
3.0
58.0
58.0
3500k.ppt
19.1
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
Figure 35 Branch Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet: Cold Run
Looking at the cold runs first, we see that the Blue Coat device largely dominates in terms
of best results. Obviously the compression options from Blue Coat are working especially
well on the text file here.
Moving on to the warm results, we can see that only the Blue Coat technology was
capable of actually accelerating from the cold runs, with everything being accessed
instantly, while Riverbed shows no optimisation whatsoever.

This can be explained only by Blue Coats ability to decrypt (then re-encrypt) the SSL
traffic stream here at the edge and take immediate advantage of its object cache on the
branch device. Since it doesnt require the head end device to be always in place to
decrypt SSL traffic (i.e. to know the private keys at both ends of the connection) it can
therefore intercept and optimise that traffic. The Riverbed solution is clearly unable to do
this something that is well documented already.
SFDCBranchOfficetoCloudviaDirectInternetConnectionWARM
300K.doc
1.0
5.0
5.0
35.0
35.0
2MB.txt
1.0
22.0
22.0
1340k.doc
1.0
Baseline
RiverbedWarm
17.0
17.0
1100k.xls
1.0
BlueCoatWarm
7.0
7.0
500k.ppt
1.0
58.0
58.0
3500k.ppt
1.0
0.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
Figure 36 Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet: Warm Run
Riverbeds usual argument here is that terminating SSL before re-encrypting is

fundamentally insecure. However, the Blue Coat argument seemed to stand up during our
testing because the last hop from its SG600 to the client is using a known certificate with
a known trust relationship. In general, if unknown parties are terminating SSL upstream
from the client, then it is insecure.
If known parties are terminating SSL upstream from the client, and that termination
point is a trusted entity within your organisation with a verifiable chain of trust, then it is
just as secure as a regular SSL connection.
36
SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS

The networking world is changing; the cloud, virtualisation and cloud/software-as-aservice applications are growing fast in adoption and requirements to optimise.
As such, while classic CIFS and FTP-type WAN optimisation are still important, it is quickly
being overtaken by a new wave of applications such as secure web applications,
collaborative environments and finally the onslaught of video.
To see if the current crop of WAN optimisation hardware is capable of delivering on these
requirements, we tested comparable products from the leading WAN optimisation
vendors: Blue Coat (MACH5 SG600) and Riverbed (Steelhead 1050).
We created a test bed using real traffic across a simulated WAN link (using typical
bandwidth and latency settings). Our application selection for testing was based on typical
modern usage patterns and included video, WAFS/file transfer, FTP, email, SharePoint
collaboration, BPOS and Salesforce.com.
We found that, when testing with traditional applications such as CIFS and FTP,
performance between these vendors was relatively even with some small advantages for
each vendor in different situations. Again, with SharePoint, Riverbed lagged slightly
behind Blue Coat. Our email test also showed even performance, with each vendor
claiming a small advantage over the other in specific conditions.
Testing of BPOS, Microsofts cloud-delivered MS Office over Internet, with symmetric WAN
optimisation (assumes data travels onto Internet link, across data centre WAN
optimisation device, then across the WAN to a branch). With traffic backhauled through
the data centre, the cold run results were reasonably similar between both vendors. What
is more interesting, however, is that when BPOS was accessed from a branch office
directly via the Internet, Riverbed could not provide any optimisation. Blue Coat,
however, showed extensive performance and bandwidth improvements with just the
single appliance.
Looking at another cloud application over a secure (SSL) Internet environment, our
Salesforce.com testing highlighted a significant limitation of the Riverbed technology that
Blue Coat is able to overcome. Only the Blue Coat product was capable of actually
accelerating this type of traffic, with everything being accessed instantly, while the
Riverbed showed no optimisation whatsoever. This can be explained only by Blue Coats
ability to decrypt (then re-encrypt) the SSL traffic stream at the branch. Since it doesnt
require the head end device (data centre WAN optimisation controller) to be always in
place to decrypt SSL traffic (i.e. to know the private keys at both ends of the connection)
it can therefore intercept and optimise that traffic, while the other could not.
The Riverbed solution is clearly unable to do this something that is well documented
already. Riverbeds usual argument here is that terminating SSL before re-encrypting is
fundamentally insecure. However, the Blue Coat argument seemed to stand up during our
testing because the last hop from its SG600 to the client is using a known certificate with
a known trust relationship.

In general, if unknown parties are terminating SSL upstream from the client, then it is
insecure. If known parties are terminating SSL upstream from the client, and that
termination point is a trusted entity within your organisation with a verifiable chain of
trust, then it is just as secure as a regular SSL connection.
In the fastest growing, and arguably biggest component of network traffic today video
Blue Coat dominated. On a link that was fully saturated at 20 concurrent clients, Blue
Coat was able to service 500 streams compared to Riverbeds modest improvement of 30
streams. On average, Blue Coat was drawing only 6kbps per stream, compared to
Riverbeds 200kbps, an almost 30x advantage for Blue Coat. Even then the SG600 was
using minimal bandwidth. R&D investment in specialised video technologies here has
clearly paid off.
38

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WAN Optimisation Test

Blue Coat vs. Riverbed

WAN OptimisationTest Report

First published March 2011 (V1.0)

The information in this Report is subject to change by Broadband-Testing without notice.

WAN Optimisation Test Report

Figure 1 Overall Results Summary .....................................................................................................................................6

Figure 2 Blue Coat MACH5 SG600 .....................................................................................................................................8

Figure 3 Riverbed Steelhead 1050 .....................................................................................................................................9

Figure 4 - Our Test Bed .................................................................................................................................................... 13

Figure 5 Baseline Video Test: 10 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 14

Figure 6 Device Video Test: 10 Streams ........................................................................................................................... 14

Figure 7 Baseline Video Test: 20 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 8 Device Video Test: 20 Streams ........................................................................................................................... 16

Figure 9 Baseline Video Test: 30 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 16

Figure 10 Device Video Test: 30 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 17

Figure 11 Baseline Video Test: 30 Streams ....................................................................................................................... 17

Figure 12 Device Video Test: 50 Streams ......................................................................................................................... 18

Figure 13 Riverbed Video Test: 50 Streams Errors .......................................................................................................... 18

Figure 14 Baseline Video Test: 100 Streams ..................................................................................................................... 19

Figure 15 Blue Coat Video Test: 100 Streams ................................................................................................................... 19

WAN OptimisationTest Report

Figure 18 Cisco WAFS Benchmark ................................................................................................................................... 22

Figure 19 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Open .................................................................................................. 23

Figure 20 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Cold Runs File Save .................................................................................................. 23

Figure 21 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Open ............................................................................................... 24

Figure 22 Cisco WAFS Benchmark: Warm Runs File Save ................................................................................................ 24

Figure 23 Email Test: Bandwidth Usage ........................................................................................................................... 25

Figure 24 FTP Test: Time Taken To Complete Transfer ...................................................................................................... 26

Figure 25 SharePoint 2007: Cold Runs ............................................................................................................................ 27

Figure 26 SharePoint 2007: Warm Runs .......................................................................................................................... 28

Figure 27 SharePoint 2010: Cold Runs ............................................................................................................................ 29

Figure 28 SharePoint 2010: Warm Runs .......................................................................................................................... 30

Figure 29 - Hub and Spoke topology .................................................................................................................................. 31

Figure 30 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Cold Run ...................................................................................................................... 32

Figure 31 BPOS: Hub-and-Spoke Warm Run .................................................................................................................... 32

Figure 32 - Branch Office to Cloud via Direct Internet Connection .......................................................................................... 33

Figure 36 Directly Connected to Cloud via Internet: Warm Run .......................................................................................... 36

WAN Optimisation Test Report

WAN OptimisationTest Report

WAN Optimisation Test Report

WAN OptimisationTest Report

Figure 1 Overall Results Summary

WAN Optimisation Test Report

INTRODUCTION: OPTIMISING THE WAN MORE

WAN OptimisationTest Report

Latency: The Performance Problem In 2011

Figure 2 Blue Coat MACH5 SG600

WAN Optimisation Test Report

Figure 3 Riverbed Steelhead 1050

WAN OptimisationTest Report

How The Technology Is Applied

WAN Optimisation Test Report

WAN OptimisationTest Report

WAN Optimisation Test Report

PUT TO THE TEST: WAN OPTIMISATION

Figure 4 - Our Test Bed

Our test bed simulated a classic office environment.

WAN OptimisationTest Report

Figure 5 Baseline Video Test: 10 Streams

Figure 6 Device Video Test: 10 Streams

WAN Optimisation Test Report