NetScaler has announced the 9900 Secure Application
Gateway and the 9950 Secure Application Switch, two devices to
optimise application performance and security in an emerging market
for Layer 4-7 traffic management.
Urs Hoelzle, vice-president of operations at Google, which
provides users with 200 million searches a day, has ordered many of
the 9900 Gateway devices for use in a number of Google data centres
in the US and Europe to handle load balancing.
"We are not interested in the Layer 7 functions, but we do want
stability and performance," he said. "To us, this is just faster
than the older [9800] model from NetScaler."
NetScaler said the two systems will process content and
applications 800% faster than competing systems on the market
today.
Mark Fabbi, an analyst at Gartner, said he could not confirm
NetScaler's performance claims, but placed NetScaler among 12
other suppliers in the relatively new web-enabled application
delivery market, which sells about $500m in software and hardware
each year.
"We're definitely seeing growth in this market, and a lot of
enterprises are asking questions about it," he said.
NetScaler competes with companies such as F5 Networks, Radware,
Redline Networks, Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks.
Both NetScaler hardware devices are designed for
high-performance application delivery systems at e-commerce sites.
The devices enable up to 8,700 transactions per second for Secure
Sockets Layer encryption, with 760Mbps encrypted throughput.
Available now, the 9900 Gateway sells for $55,000 and the 9950
Switch sells for $90,000.
In other network management news, AlterPoint announced
DeviceAuthority Suite, a bundling of three network configuration
management products: DeviceAuthority Audit Module, DeviceAuthority
Update Module and DeviceAuthority Server.
The bundle will allow network managers to make changes to
networks reliably. Real-time integration and feedback are provided
with a new tool called Integrated Network Environment.
Pricing for the suite starts at $19,950 for 100 devices.
Meanwhile, Sniffer Technologies, a division of Network
Associates also announced InfiniStream Network Management and 10
Gigabit Ethernet Analyser.
The InifiniStream Network Management product comes in two
hardware platforms for analysing network problems. They include the
i1610, a 4U rack-mounted appliance with two port Gigabit
connections and 3.2Tbytes of storage capacity, and the i410, a 2U
rack-mounted appliance with 800Gbytes of storage and four ports of
10/100 Ethernet capability.
Both devices are available now. The i1610 is priced at $75,000
and the i410 at $35,000.
Sniffer is also offering the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Analyzer, a
network monitoring and analysis appliance that is 4U in size,
$150,000.
Expand Networks also announced the Accelerator System 9000 for
bandwidth acceleration. The appliance provides Gigabit Ethernet
ports and redundant power capability and will support up to 1,500
sites with speeds up to 200Mbps. Pricing starts at $64,995.
Matt Hamblen writes for Computerworld