DataPower, Gluecode Join to Speed XML

As XML becomes more ubiquitous, developers are finding that XML processing requires more horsepower than their servers can provide.

Stepping in with new solutions to help accelerate XML content are DataPower Technology Inc. and Gluecode Software Inc. The pair will announce this week a deal in which the companies will co-market souped-up XML processing solutions for users of Gluecodes portal solution. Gluecode will use DataPowers XG3 XML processing software and the DataPower XA35 XML processing appliance to help scale the number of users that portals created with Gluecodes Gluecode Foundation Server can support.

"Enterprises are increasingly relying on portal applications to share information," said Kieran Taylor, director of product management at DataPower, in Cambridge, Mass. "XML is a key technology for enabling it, but performance and ease of use are two issues that remain."

"Having a DataPower box presents a load balance between performance in XML processing and performance in Java processing," said Gluecode CEO Winston Damarillo, in Los Angeles.

Jeff Lamb, chief technology officer of Leader Technologies Inc., a Columbus, Ohio, communications software company that runs the LeaderPhone Web-enabled teleconferencing service, said Leader installed a DataPower XA35 appliance to help accelerate relatively complex Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations.

Lamb said Leader had been using an open-source, software-only solution, Xalan, from The Apache Software Foundation—but found it inadequate. Meanwhile, with the DataPower solution, "we got a twelvefold increase in performance and a fifteeenfold increase in scalability, which means we can run 12 times faster and support 15 times as many users," said Lamb.