It has been awhile since we have had an upgrade in bandwidth. We find that the solution basically keeps everything in check. Two years ago, we decided that we were spending a lot of money on cable. We went out there and polled the students whether they watch TV or not. By looking at Exinda, I could see that I had several terabytes worth of Netflix coming across the network. I could see that they were already subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. I'm like, "Wow. They're already using all these services anyway." So, we made the decision to go ahead and turn off cable TV. Because when they say they're watching TV, they're subscribing to their services and using the bandwidth anyway. We were able to get some savings there by disconnecting traditional cable service and focusing our efforts more on just delivering content digitally and Internet-based. Because of that kind of visibility, it gave us real insight into what students were doing in their dorm rooms.

If I don't have to keep on upping my bandwidth every single year as applications become more media intense, then in the long run, we see savings. I've talked to some other more well-endowed schools who are able to throw all kinds of bandwidth at it. They have a crazy amount. While we do have to be a bit more intentional about what we're doing, I can say, confidently, based on the traffic that we don't need any more bandwidth right now. Compression rates are getting better too. As far as budget planning, we're in a great place. We don't have to even consider increasing our bandwidth. As a result of this, it does save you money over time. You're making informed decisions; it's not guessing.

IT spends a lot of money on technology, but it's across the business. If you don't have it, you're not competitive. Your returns are a lot of soft returns, because you're able to provide a necessary service, and because of that, your people are happier. You're spending less than you would have because you're managing the problem, not just throwing money at it.

I know that there is a savings. I know what it cost to subscribe to another several gig of bandwidth. When you're paying that monthly fee of $6,000 to $8,000, depending on who you go with a month for a gig of data, it can get expensive.

For our customers, the typical ROI is in 3 years or under, depending on bandwidth costs and the deployment type, i.e., traffic shaping alone or traffic shaping with acceleration.

I'm more on the technical side, but I see the return on investment when you can actually compete with somebody else who doesn't have one. It helps with retention. Customers who have asked for 50 Mb go to somebody else and they usually come back because they did not realize that 50 Mb of non-shaped, versus our 50 Mb, is not the same.

It does make my life easier, being able to troubleshoot something really fast. I'm able to see the traffic on a screen and I'm able to packet-capture quickly. I've never thought of it as a time saver, but it obviously is.

You can't do a business ROI on a product like Exinda. We can't say how much money we have saved by having Exinda versus how much money we would have lost by not having Exinda. It doesn't work that way.

The benefit that we have seen is that if we turn it off, people notice that the applications are running slowly.

We have seen ROI with Exinda in that it is better than what we were using and it is certainly easier to manage. It impacts my time much less than the old solution and it gives me the visibility that I need into certain things. In terms of time saved, while this area is not a big part of my job, I'm the only one who does it. With Exinda I probably spend half the time that I would have on the old solution if I need to implement a rule change.

It's a product we use all the time. I would think we've seen return from it. 

1 year