Dimension Data announced on Tuesday that it has introduced WAN optimization capabilities to its cloud globally. By deploying WAN optimization technology in Dimension Data's Managed Cloud Platform (MCP) cloud data centers, Dimension Data clients are reporting a significant increase in application performance across the entire cloud. Organizations using the cloud for database replication, file synchronization, and backup and disaster recovery between data centers have realized the greatest improvement in performance. An enhanced capability, WAN optimization is provided as part of the company's standard public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering at no additional charge.

According to Steve Nola, CEO of Dimension Data's Cloud Solutions Business Unit, "we are helping our clients overcome the latency and bandwidth constraints often associated with public cloud services."

Dimension Data has implemented WAN optimization controller (WOC) appliances in its MCPs in San Jose, Calif. and Ashburn, Va., U.S.; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Sydney, Australia; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Traffic moving between these sites is encrypted over a VPN tunnel and optimized for delivery using deduplication and application-specific protocol optimization.

"No other cloud provider offers a core that is optimized for acceleration," Nola continued. "By providing optimal network and cloud performance, in addition to flexibility and ease of use, we provide organizations the ability to speed the process of migrating their data and applications to the cloud."

Additionally, Dimension Data has been working on several other enhancements to increase the overall performance and reliability of its cloud offering. In December, Dimension Data introduced two new capabilities:

• Server Anti-Affinity: Increases resiliency by allowing end users to configure a rule ensuring two cloud servers do not reside on the same physical host. If a physical host fails, only one of the two cloud servers will be affected, increasing resiliency.
• Global Import and Export: Allows users to import and export images from the cloud to their own data center or between MCPs. This makes it easy to move workloads between different cloud data centers through the Web-based administrative user interface or the REST-based API.

Dimension Data's cloud services are delivered on its MCP, a fully managed cloud delivery platform. Hosted within a Dimension Data or client data center, the MCP is comprised of cloud infrastructure (servers, storage, networking, virtualization and operating system software) and Dimension Data CloudControl^TM, a cloud management system that provides operational control and automation of cloud resource provisioning, orchestration, administration and billing. Dimension Data's public cloud services can be accessed globally via its public MCPs in San Jose, Calif., and Ashburn, Va., U.S.; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Sydney, Australia; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Hong Kong.

Dimension Data's WAN optimization capability is immediately available as part of its cloud offerings.  For more information, please visit www.dimensiondata.com/cloud.