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Peribit Networks Inc. last week introduced a software update to a device that it said makes it easier to manage network quality of service and reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to run applications such as VOIP.
The enhanced MSR (Molecular Sequence Reduction) technology in the Santa Clara, Calif., companys SR (Sequence Reducer)-50 network management device can spot repeated data patterns in traffic from a range of applications and use that information to reduce the number of bytes and packets traveling on a WAN, officials said.
Peribit also said it will add a second device to its product lineup next month, the SR-55, which includes support for Gigabit Ethernet.
The upgraded MSR technology provides support for QOS, allowing for traffic prioritization from within the network devices or from other routers or switches on the network. It also adds more powerful reduction capabilities, particularly for voice-over-IP applications. While the previous technology could reduce the number of voice bytes by about 15 percent, the MSR upgrade reduces that number by at least 40 percent, said Amit Singh, founder and chief technology officer at Peribit.
“As we go into larger accounts, we need these additional features and capabilities to make deployments in complex networks completely seamless,” Singh said.
Patrick Wilson, director of IT at Finisar Corp., is using the SR-50 in four of his companys five locations to help free up WAN bandwidth. Wilson said he plans to add the device in the fifth office later this month and to use QOS capabilities to gain more granular prioritization than the QOS features provided in his network routers. He said he also expects the SR-50 to help him avoid having to buy large amounts of new WAN capacity as the fiber-optics-components maker begins to deploy VOIP applications later this year.
“It continues to allow us to add applications without the constant concern of adding bandwidth for every single one,” Wilson said. “It makes it more cost-effective every time you do something like [VOIP].”
The Peribit devices support WAN connections as high as T-3 speeds and, for applications such as enterprise resource planning systems, can reduce data by as much as 75 percent, Singh said. The MSR technology recognizes repeated data patterns—such as one e-mail message sent to multiple people, the same database fields or common company information—and sends only one instance of the information over the WAN. It then rebuilds the multiple instances on the other end, Singh said.
The first device, the SR-50, was introduced in September 2001 and supports 10/100M-bps connections. The SR-55 adds Gigabit Ethernet with two 10/100/1,000M-bps ports. It also has a switch-to-wire fault tolerance feature, allowing traffic to continue to flow in the event of a failure, officials said.
Peribits MSR technology is based on Singhs previous work with large pattern matching within DNA sequencing. He founded the company in May 2000.
Pricing for the SR-50 device starts at $6,000 for a 256K-bps WAN connection and ranges to $50,000 for a T-3 connection. The SR-55 price is $2,000 more than the SR-50.