Reining in remote or branch offices can help solve a number of storage problems, such as data protection, storage administration and management, and the proliferation of heterogeneous systems.

There's no shortage of solutions available, but each comes with its own risks and benefits. In this session, we take a close look at the options and suggest the best fit for certain environments.

Some of the issues that will be discussed include:

• WAN optimization and WAFS--what's the difference?
• Global namespace, consolidation, application acceleration--what do they mean and what do you need?
• How to determine which type of wide-area product will best address your needs
• Key vendors and products in this field--and how do they compare
• Implementation issues--just how tough is it to deploy and maintain these tools