One of the issues raised by competitors after Packeteer acquired Tacit was how it would deal with the fact that its own WAN optimization/app acceleration devices (the PacketShaper range) run on a real-time OS while Tacit’s iShared products run on Windows. Far from promising integration onto a single platform, however, the Cupertino, California-based company said the two portfolios are essentially designed for different purposes. It said PacketShaper goes into a network core, whereas the iShared technology goes into both branch offices and HQ.
That affirmation can perhaps be questioned; after all, PacketShaper may well be optimization the link out to a branch office, just as an iShared platform is, the difference being that WAFS addresses storage-related protocols like CIFS, NFS and MAPI whereas WAN optimization/app acceleration works on HTTP, FTP and others. Nonetheless, Packeteer has decided to make a virtue of necessity with Tacit’s Microsoft reliance, and as such can argue that its WAFS offering has the edge on others (Cisco’s Actona technology, Riverbed and Expand’s DiskSites product) which are on other OSes such as Linux.
Noah Breslow, Packeteer’s director of product integration, said iShared 3.2 has two new features that are only possible because it runs on Windows. Firstly, we have the FlexInstall function, which enables the iShared software to be installed on existing servers in a branch, he said. This was developed in response to requests from large enterprises who, because they were deploying iShared, were putting a lot of file servers out of work and so wanted to repurpose them. Being Windows-based, we can wrap and install shell around the software and the servers can become the appliance. This obviated the need to buy a dedicated iShared appliance for that branch, whereas he said, Riverbed, Cisco and expand all force the company to take an appliance.
Secondly, we have improved iShared’s integration with Microsoft’s Systems Management Server for handling software updates to remote PCs, he said. A WAFS infrastructure can remove the need for an SMS server in every branch, enabling an enterprise to run a single SMS in the core and populate the updates out to iShared boxes in the branches, whence the updates can be made locally over the LAN rather than over the WAN to every PC.
Breslow said some enterprises continue to want an SMS server at the individual branch in order for an admin to keep control of the update schedule at that site, and to this end, v3.2 of iShared supports the co-location of the iShared software and SMS in a single box.
The US list price for the iShared appliances starts at $4,600, though the company did not reveal the pricing for the software-only version. As for integration of the product lines, while arguing that full integration onto a single OS is not a requirement, Breslow did say that, during this week’s conference call with the analyst community, Packeteer will reveal plans for cross-pollination of the two.
