Equipment vendors, reacting to the slowed economy, are pushing the message that todays entrenched networks are unwieldy and inefficient and are hurting the bottom line. This message is at the heart of a host of cost-saving products that the vendors said will offer a swift return on investment.
Abeona Networks Inc., in Fremont, Calif., next week will unveil its WTC (Web Transaction Controller), which combines the speed of a server with many more network functions and is designed to eliminate the transaction bottleneck created when racks of equipment are cobbled together.
WTC includes the functions of load balancers, Web accelerators, Web servers, caching and the switches that connect these devices. Capable of replacing 10 to 15 typical Web servers, the controller is targeted at transaction-intensive enterprises, such as financial services, e-tailers and business-to-business exchanges.
Following a similar premise, Nexsi Systems Inc. is promoting what the company calls “the worlds first content services system,” which aggregates a series of security, bandwidth management and content services simultaneously for hundreds of content domains.
The Nexsi 8000 can replace as many as 500 network elements—such as firewalls, virtual private networks and Web switches—without slowing throughput, officials said.
“It is a very expensive proposition to have to provision separate little boxes for each customer,” said John McFarlane, CEO of Nexsi, in San Jose, Calif. “What has never been worked out before is all the little devices on the network.”
The virtual device, which is activated via a “softswitch,” is built for service provider and enterprise networks. One device can support as many as 100 customers and can process up to 100 separate firewall policies. It provides end users with Web access to their own “virtual” applications.
For example, service providers could allow customers to open part of their firewall, giving end users the capability to change a firewall rule or a Web switching rule even though the services are hosted.
For enterprises looking to economize by using leased lines with the latest security features, several vendors will be launching upgrades.
Rainbow Technologies Inc., which recently received Federal Information Processing Standard certification for its CryptoSwift Hardware Security Module and iKey 2032 products, will demonstrate its NetSwift 2012 security acceleration appliance at the NetWorld+Interop trade show in Atlanta this week.
This month, Rainbow, in Irvine, Calif., plans to give its security channel partners full access to its internal technology database.