Riverbed Note: Optimize (don't exclude) your KVM traffic

Discovered this interesting tip today. When connecting to our Dell (rebranded advocent) 2161DS KVM over the WAN it was taking up quite a bit of bandwidth. (up to about 1-2 Mb/s, depending on what was on the going on KVM)

I had previously added a rule to NOT optimize traffic to the KVM thinking that since it was interactive that it would be best if the Riverbeds didn't optimize the traffic. I suppose my subconscious mind also thought that the software had been designed a little better and this wouldn't be a problem.

So, after noticing the bandwidth used, I removed the exclusion rule I had previously set (thus allowing the Riverbeds to optimize that traffic) and then checked and saw that optimized was MUCH nicer on my WAN with no noticeable difference in experience.

In my 15 minutes or so of testing it showed 59% reduction


Moral of the story being DO optimize your KVM traffic over the WAN. (at least for the Dell 2161 DS KVMs)