Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a suite of common applications to author, edit and produce documents, spreadsheets and presentations. These files are typically stored on a centrally located file server available to groups of users. To open, save and manage documents between the user’s computer and the server, Microsoft uses the Common Internet File System protocol (CIFS).

CIFS typically make hundreds or thousands of round trips between the client and server, so it is particularly vulnerable to latency. Therefore, when Microsoft Office files are accessed natively using CIFS, remote users often experience significant performance delays that can impact productivity.

The Blue Coat Application Delivery Network (ADN) helps accelerate and optimize any application that relies on the CIFS protocol, including Microsoft Office applications. By reducing latency and increasing WAN throughput, the ADN dramatically reduces the time needed to open, edit and save a file in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel. For instance, one study discovered the following performance gains:

• Blue Coat improved Microsoft Office application performance by an average of 59 percent over a 256Kbit/second WAN link with 110ms of latency
• In the same test, Blue Coat improved performance by 50 percent over a T1 WAN link with the same latency
• Subsequent operations on the same files consistently showed 99% improvement in response time for both links

Overall, Blue Coat has been shown to accelerate the time to open, edit and save Microsoft Office documents by 70x, a critical performance improvement needed to make these applications usable over a WAN link.

To learn more, read our Application Performance Brief: Microsoft Office Applications