If your enterprise is geographically distributed, and you run applications across your WAN, you'll find that the apps run slowly because of high latency, limited bandwidth, packet loss, and contention. Several vendors have addressed this problem with packet-level compression and differencing; relative newcomer Certeon digs deeper into the packets than its competitors, down to the level of application-level docum If your enterprise is geographically distributed, and you run applications across your WAN, you’ll find that the apps run slowly because of high latency, limited bandwidth, packet loss, and contention. Several vendors have addressed this problem with packet-level compression and differencing; relative newcomer Certeon digs deeper into the packets than its competitors, down to the level of application-level documents.Certeon has had WAN accelerator devices in the field since February that support Web apps using HTTP and HTTPS, Microsoft Office 2003, and Oracle eBusiness Suite. This Monday, the company will be announcing support for Microsoft Office 2007, SharePoint 2007, and their Open XML document formats, as well as for Exchange messages and attachments, in its S-Series Application Acceleration Appliances. This actually means more than initially meets the eye.The Open XML file formats use ZIP compression. ZIP compression reduces document size, but it also inhibits additional compression. As it turns out, Open XML also makes it harder for a WAN accelerator to use document differencing to increase transmission speed. Certeon has overcome these problems using an acceleration “blueprint” that understands how to decompress, decompose and difference Open XML documents. The net result is an overall 300% to 600% improvement in the transmission of changed files compared to standard acceleration methods, according to the company’s lab results. Technology Industry