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Packeteer’s New Traffic Classification Software Controls Application Performance for Server Consolidation Projects
New Software Modules Accelerate & Control Wide Area File Services (WAFS) and Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 Traffic Between Data Centers and Branch Offices

CUPERTINO, CA – October 3, 2005 – Packeteer® (NASDAQ: PKTR), the global leader in WAN Application Optimization, today announced the release of new software that classifies, visualizes, controls and optimizes WAFS and Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R) traffic over the WAN. While WAFS and DFS-R are enabling technologies that accelerate file services between data centers and branch offices, server consolidation projects leveraging these technologies increase WAN traffic loads with significantly more data traffic and common WAFS protocols like CIFS and Windows DFS-R. Last week, Packeteer also announced a strategic alliance with Tacit Networks to help enterprises address server consolidation and WAFS requirements.

Server consolidation projects are frequently driven without properly analyzing the impact on WAN application performance. Packeteer’s new WAN traffic classification software will help organizations realize key application performance benefits by accurately classifying and controlling the additional network traffic that results from any server consolidation initiative. Because centralized file services data competes with real-time business-critical applications such as ERP, CRM VoIP, and more, enterprises need to protect these crucial resources from intrusive data traffic in order to maintain acceptable application performance between data centers and branch offices.

Packeteer’s new classification software provides complete layer 7 visibility into WAFS traffic generated by Tacit Networks’ iShared and other appliances as well as Microsoft’s R2 feature pack with Distributed File System (DFS-R) for Windows 2003 Server. In addition, the new modules can classify, sub-classify and control various widely-used Microsoft protocols, including Active Directory, Exchange and DCOM. By combining Packeteer’s classification software with any of these technologies, enterprises will be able to control file access traffic performance from impacting business critical applications.

"Branch office application architecture is an exciting and rapidly evolving area,” says Peter Christy, principal analyst at Internet Research Group. “But even with the performance benefits delivered by WAFS solutions and the new technology Microsoft is delivering in Windows Server 2003 R2, capacity-limited WAN links will still require careful attention to traffic management. The timely incorporation of WAFS, MAPI, and R2 traffic in Packeteer's new classification software modules will play an important role helping enterprises deploy and operate innovative branch office solutions."

“Enterprises with multiple branch offices are evaluating the consolidation of e-mail, web and file servers in order to significantly reduce costs, improve data integrity and security,” said David Puglia, vice president of marketing with Packeteer. “One of the hidden costs of server consolidation is the business impact of increased traffic load on the WAN. With our introduction of WAFS and DFS-R traffic classification, IT organizations can mitigate the impact of increased WAN load, ensuring the optimal performance of business transaction applications.”

Optimizing WAFS and R2 Over the WAN

Packeteer’s advanced layer 7 classification software automatically discovers over 450 applications, including traffic generated by WAFS protocols such as Tacit Network’s SC/IP, Microsoft’s DFS-R, and standard CIFS data being sent from and received by branch offices. With this capability, network administrators can continuously determine traffic “round trip” response times as well as network and application bandwidth utilization levels. In addition, the new classification software provides advanced forensics and connection profiling to determine the root cause of poor performance. As a result, continuous monitoring is provided to ensure branch office performance maintains specific service levels.

The new classification software applies policies and partitions to WAFS and DFS-R traffic for bi-directional control. Leveraging Packeteer’s Adaptive Response technology, the new software allocates the necessary bandwidth to WAFS and DFS-R traffic to provide branch office users with optimal performance levels. At the same time, business critical branch office traffic including ERP, point-of-sale, CRM, and SFA is identified and protected in order to ensure these high priority applications maintain optimal response times.

By combining the new classification software with Packeteer’s application-intelligent compression algorithms that are used to reduce redundant traffic, freed bandwidth can be allocated to high priority branch office applications. Packeteer’s PolicyCenter and ReportCenter software collaborate with its new classification software to provide centralized control and reporting for all branch offices.

Availability

The new classification software, available for download free-of-charge to customers with support contracts, will be available later this month.