Content Delivery Systems Add Web Services to Mix

CDN system vendors are pushing into the burgeoning Web services arena, saying their networking approaches can deliver more efficient Web services offerings.

Volera Inc. last week announced its plans to deliver software to speed up, manage and secure the delivery of Web services over its content delivery network platform.

Officials with Volera, Novell Inc.s e-business networking solutions subsidiary in San Jose, Calif., said they will extend their CDN platform to handle high-performance Web services delivery by moving the services closer to the end user, caching commonly used components at the edge and prioritizing Simple Object Access Protocol messages.

Company President Simon Khalaf said Volera will reduce the cost and complexity of deploying Web services. He also said the Web services strategy is a natural extension of Voleras CDN platform.

Volera, like other companies taking a CDN approach, said that delivering Web services applications over existing networks can mean unpredictable performance and security problems.

Volera plans to deliver its Web services initiative in phases this fall.

Meanwhile, Akamai Technologies Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., and IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., announced an initiative around Akamais EdgeSuite CDN solution.

EdgeSuite for Java, based on IBMs WebSphere, is an edge computing service that will enable enterprises to deliver Web applications and Web services at the edge of the network, closer to customers, partners and suppliers.

The companies announced an early adopter program last week for the technology. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, of London, will use EdgeSuite for Java to add functionality to its dealer locator application. Mats Frisk, a core application architect for e-business at Sony, said his companys interest in the Akamai-IBM solution is “really quite simple. Were participating to be able to deliver content and functionality faster and on a global basis to our consumers and our customers.”

The service is expected to be available in the fourth quarter, the companies said.

In addition, Inktomi Corp., of Foster City, Calif., this week will announce a deal with Stratify Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., company that specializes in solutions for unstructured data management, to offer joint customers an integrated categorized search tool for large, information-intensive enterprises.

Inktomi will also resell the Stratify Discovery System for Inktomi Enterprise Search through its worldwide sales force, said Stratify CEO Nimish Mehta.

Last week, Inktomi launched a deal with MediaWave Corporate Services Ltd. MediaWave will deploy Inktomis CDN software across its European network to deliver new managed services for the enterprise market. The Derby, England, company plans to use Inktomis services to offer new revenue-generating services such as Web-based training and other offerings.