As a result of the Silver Peak-optimized WAN, Finisar employees can readily access their centralized Microsoft Exchange e-mail, Microsoft Windows file services and other applications. Integrated circuit designers in different locations can more easily collaborate on engineering drawings, despite their massive file sizes. IT can create customized oracle applications in one location and easily move them to another location for production use. And most importantly, the ability to recover more data in less time has enabled Finisar to meet its disaster recovery objectives by backing up remote offices in a timely manner and ensuring real-time data replication.

In addition, the company is getting more than 100 Mbps actual WAN throughput using SnapMirror on a 35 Mbps link between california and Texas, cutting a 2 hour replication to less than 15 minutes.

Finisar has also dramatically improved its overall WAN bandwidth utilization. It averages less than 6 Mbps of capacity on a 40 Mbps link, which is a 75 percent improvement from when the company had no spare capacity on this connection. This avoids costly WAN upgrades and leaves plenty of room for future traffic growth.