In order for NHS to satisfy its requirement to transmit large medical imaging files in a timely and secure manner, they must be able to subscribe to circuits of the appropriate bandwidth at each remote office to address the local needs. Unfortunately, the remoteness of some of these locations have resulted in the limitation of network connectivity options. Therefore, the cost-effective alternative to expensive, high-bandwidth internet circuits is to use a WAN optimization solution. A WAN optimization solution consists of a network appliance at each location that focuses on increasing network performance. It accomplishes this through the use of a combination of data compression, content and object-caching, data deduplication and protocol optimization. A WAN optimization appliance works in conjunction with the available bandwidth at a location. The host site would have an appliance that would build ‘acceleration tunnels’ to each of the appliances located at the remote sites. The appliances at the remote sites would be sized based upon the number of users and the available bandwidth at that location. …show more content…
It is a very cost-effective approach. Higher bandwidth circuits in remote areas tend to be expensive. The purchase of network appliances are normally a capital expenditure that can be amortized over the life of the product. This timeframe is normally 3 to 5 years. On the other hand, the addition of larger circuits is an operational expenditure that incurs a higher recurring cost on a monthly basis. Secondly, these appliances are transparent to the end user. They do not require additional software on the users’ computers, or require any special setup on a per-user