The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance - Jason Whitaker, Transylvania University

The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance
Jason Whitaker, Transylvania U.
&
VistaOne Corporation

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…

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

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

PDF Reports
Exinda Details

Active Directory Integration
Exinda Details
Click on a user’s
ID to see application
detail of their traffic

Active Directory Integration:
Exinda Details
View a user’s
usage data
by application

Exinda Details
…by conversation

Exinda Details
…by URL

Exinda Details
…by hosts

Application Grouping
Exinda Details

Real-time Host/User Rates
Exinda Details

Real-time Application Rates
Exinda Details

WAN Interface
Exinda Details

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?

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

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

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

The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance
Jason Whitaker, Transylvania U.
&
VistaOne Corporation

The Exinda WAN Optimization Appliance - Jason Whitaker, Transylvania University

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