I tested all of the major wan optimizers about 2 years ago including Riverbed Steelheads, Cisco WAAS, and the Citrix product. The end result is the Riverbed blew everyone out of the water. It wasn't even close.
I initially thought the Citrix product would be best since at the time all wan users used citrix for 100% of their work, but what I found after installing demo units is the ICA protocol was apparently not being optimized to the degree I had anticipated. I worked with engineers of the product who explained how the ICA optimization worked which after understanding it I wasn't too impressed. The users notice no real difference. When I put the steelheads in, the performance increase was so great I actually eventually pulled everyone at all remote sites off of citrix with the exception of 2 database apps that still have to go through citrix because they're too chatty. I average a 7x bandwidth increase with the steelheads with their compression. IMO, they might cost a lot more, but are worth every penny. Jon ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
