Network World Product Review Highlights

Network World WAN Acceleration Product Review Highlights

Executive Summary
In Network World’s “WAN Acceleration Clear Choice” product review published on August 13, 2007, Cisco WAAS is validated as the
only enterprise-class solution designed for large scale deployments:
• No.1 enterprise-class scalability
• No.1 bandwidth optimization performance
• No.1 QoS performance
• No.1 or No.2 acceleration performance
• Outstanding manageability

No.1 Enterprise-class Scalability - Cisco WAAS outperformed all vendors by a large margin, sustaining 50,113 TCP connections:

Maximum Accelerated TCP Connections

Maximum Accelerated TCP Connections Vendor Marketing Claim vs. Reality
50,113
50,000
43,306 140,000 128,000

40,000 120,000 Claim

100,000 Reality
30,000
80,000
19,499 50,000 50,113
20,000 60,000 43,306
Not
12,202 published
40,000 19,499
10,000 15,000
12,202
20,000

0 0
Blue Coat Cisco Riverbed Silver Peak Bluecoat Cisco Riverbed Silver Peak

No.1 Bandwidth Optimization Performance – Using percentage, which is easier to understand than factor and used as the
industry norm, Cisco WAAS outperforms the group for a large margin for fresh file transfer and comes 2nd with 0.7%
striking distance to the highest vendor. A large-margin win plus a undifferentiated loss makes Cisco the top performer.

WAN Bandwidth Reduction Percentage

3 Cisco
outperforms by
a large margin
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Maximum
Maximum Accelerated TCP Connections
Accelerated TCP
Vendor Marketing No acceleration 0
50,113 Claim vs. Reality Blue Coat cold 24.4%
50,000 Connections 140,000 128,000
43,306
40,000 120,000 Claim
Cisco cold 96.4%
30,000
100,000 Reality
Riverbed cold 44.8%
80,000

20,000
19,499
60,000 50,000 50,113
43,306
Silver Peak cold 27.2%
10,000
12,202 40,000 19,499 15,000
12,202
Blue Coat warm 97.9%
20,000

0 0
Cisco warm 98.1%
Bluecoat Cisco Riverbed Silver Peak
Blue Coat Cisco Riverbed Silver Peak Riverbed warm 98.8%
Silver Peak warm 96.2%
1 Blue Coat 10% changed 94.8%
Cisco 10% changed 94.9%
Riverbed 10% changed 96.9%
Silver Peak 10% changed 94.6%
Illusion:
Cisco 52.97 Reality:
Riverbed 83.95 2 Cisco 98.1%
Riverbed 98.8%

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 Network World Product Review Highlights

No.1 QoS Performance – Using enterprises’ existing router and therefore protecting their investment, Cisco scored 92.03 out of the
maximum 93 QoS R-value measuring VoIP audio quality. Note that this test was using a single VoIP call and hence not a realistic
real world scenario. In a more realistic scenario many VoIP calls are present, Cisco router QoS will perform substantially better than
other vendors’ limited QoS functionality.

No.1 or No.2 Acceleration – Under low bandwidth and high delay hence the most demanding test conditions where acceleration is
needed the most, Cisco performs 9.59% faster than Riverbed for CIFS cold transfer, 3.39% faster for MAPI, and 12.99% slower for
CIFS (10% changed content).

Response Time % Better or Worse Than Riverbed

Low bandwidth, high delay
CIFS (pull CIFS (Pull 10%
warm) CIFS (pull cold) MAPI changed)
15.00%
9.59%
10.00%
3.39% 5.00%

0.00%

-5.00%

-8.32% -10.00%

-12.99% -15.00%

In addition, all vendors hit diminished return on acceleration, especially for MAPI when response time improvements are measured in
download time (second).

Network World Response MAPI Response Time

Time Improvement Factor MAPI Download Time (Seconds)
Improvement In Seconds
0 100 200 300 400 500

388
No Acceleration 31
122
33
214
Blue Coat 17
83
14
289
Cisco 16
98
15
269
Riverbed 14
90
16 High bandwidth, high delay
Low bandwidth, low delay
198
Silver Peak 18 High bandwidth, low delay
83
18 Low bandwidth, high delay

All vendors hit

diminished
return on
acceleration

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 Network World Product Review Highlights

Put “Acceleration” Into Right Perspective –While it’s tempting to raise an eyebrow on Cisco’s 12.39 CIFS response time
improvement factor vs. the highest vendor’s 45.46, a seemingly big difference, the reality is that the same measurement really means
that the response time is improved by Cisco by 91.9% vs. the highest vendor’s 97.8%. Cisco WAAS clearly turns in top notch
performance under this single user, “drag race” test. Performance under large load, which is scalability, becomes far more important
and Cisco scores No.1 in that area by a large margin.

Network World Response Response Time

CIFS Download Response Time
Time Improvement Factor Improvement Percentage
Reduction Percentage
0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

81.5%
64.1%
Blue Coat 54.7% High bandwidth, high delay

76.9%
Low bandwidth, low delay
High bandwidth, low delay
Low bandwidth, high delay
44.5%
Cisco 91.9%
29.8%
84.4%

86.8%
97.8%
Riverbed 77.4%
97.0%

76.6%
Silver Peak 91.1%
72.6%
87.6%

Illusion: Reality:
Cisco 12.39 Cisco 91.9%
Riverbed 45.46 Riverbed 97.8%

Outstanding Manageability – Cisco is one of the 3 vendors that fully support centralized management, with outstanding
management interface: “Cisco's display bristles with features and commands… Cisco's redesigned dashboard offers whizzy
graphics, useful pie charts on CIFS application performance and real-time connection monitoring and per-device reporting on
connection statistics”.

Conclusion
By achieving No.1 scalability in the Network World test, and the “Best Value” award from Network Computing, and “Product
Leadership Silver Award” from Search Networking, Cisco WAAS is clearly validated as the only enterprise-class solution that meets
all of the following requirements:
• No.1 scalability, No.1 or No.2 acceleration performance, and outstanding manageability (Network World)
• “Product Leadership Silver Award” for best network integration and interoperability (Search Networking)
• “Best Value Award” (Network Computing)

Printed in USA

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