Citrix buys into WAN optimisation

The acquisition of Orbital Data will help Citrix speed up WAN links

Citrix Systems is to buy Orbital Data in a move that will strengthen its hand in optimising WAN application connections for branch-office staff and other users of remote services.

The $50m deal will see California-based Orbital’s technology offered under the Citrix WANscaler brand as a way to speed up web- and client/server-based applications delivered via Citrix Presentation Server and NetScaler. Further integration with other Citrix products will follow.

Citrix said that “problematic” applications such as file-sharing and large data transfers will be boosted by up to a factor of 50. Quality of service for video and other services would also benefit, Citrix said.

Citrix cited IDC data suggesting the WAN optimisation sector will almost double to be worth $610m by 2009. That demand has attracted networking firms such as Cisco, Juniper and F5 to make their own acquisitions.

Citrix added that 55 percent of enterprise staff access business applications remotely. Certainly, the sector should be buoyed by rising costs of office space and traffic congestion in cities, and increasingly liberal attitudes to remote working.