Sun will unveil its first content switch later this
month.
The load-balancing and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) acceleration
switch is based on the Nauticus N2000 products that the company
acquired when it bought switch supplier Nauticus Networks in
January.
Sun plans to ship its new switch by the end of the year, and
will deliver early versions of the product to selected customers in
time for a press and industry partner event, to be held in New York
on 21 September.
"The Nauticus switch allows us to have a classic load balancing
switch with much higher performance and security than you would
normally see in these products," said John Fowler, executive
vice-president of Sun's Network Systems Group.
The Sun-branded switch will be integrated with Sun's N1
management software, "so it all works together as a seamless
whole", Fowler said.
"What we can do with this box is run security so fast that you
can always be secure," said Fowler. "So you don't have to worry
about your banking site, for example, being spoofed because it's
always going to be secure."
The switch also has a "virtualisation" capability that allows
customers to run a number of disparate networks on a single switch,
Fowler said.
"It has the ability to partition and have a whole bunch of
different routing domains or policy domains. This is something that
other switches cannot do."
Until now the only networking products that Sun has sold have
been networking cards for its systems, a virtualisation switch for
the company's StorEdge 6920 storage system, and network switching
products that go into its blade servers.
Its decision to move into the content switch market came as a
surprise to some analysts, who say that the move risks antagonising
Cisco, a long-time Sun partner, which paid $5.7bn (£3.1bn) in stock
four years ago to acquire content switch supplier ArrowPoint
Communications.
"Sun is not, as I understand its business, very much into the
network switch business, and it has a lot of friends, partners, and
allies that are in that networking business," said Jonathan Eunice,
an analyst with Illuminata.
Others say Sun's move should not come as a complete surprise. "I
am sure there are some high-level discussions, with people asking,
'Why is Sun competing with us in this market', but this happens all
the time," said Joel Conover, principal analyst with Current
Analysis.
The real trick for Sun will be to avoid confusion in its sales
channel now that it is offering products that compete with its
partners, Conover said.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service