Computing appliances are gaining a foothold in
enterprise IT systems because of their simplicity, reliability,
ease of use and lower cost compared with general purpose
computers.
The appliance is basically a self-contained IT system that can
be plugged into an existing IT infrastructure to carry out a single
purpose, making it comparable to a consumer appliance such as the
toaster.
The appliance is designed to address a specific IT operation
from within a closed architecture that may contain an operating
environment, storage and specific applications. The appliance's
purpose could be to provide additional processing power, network
storage or monitoring, or anti-virus and security.
As a concept, the computing appliance is not new in fact, home
users were the early adopters of many appliances with such things
as games consoles, the iPod, or TV set-top boxes.
Among businesses, appliances have largely been adopted to carry
out networking functions. For example, special-purpose router
appliances from suppliers such as
Cisco and
Nortel have almost entirely replaced general purpose computers
for packet routing.
Other examples of network appliances include network fax servers
and network back-up servers. The modern printer can be viewed as a
network appliance, plugging into the network rather than into a
general-purpose computer.
Appliances have also become popular for network storage, with
firms like
Network Appliance (NetApp) producing the Windows or Unix-based
network storage appliance, formerly referred to as a filer.
There are now signs that the appliance is ready to evolve as
software firms such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft are starting to
show interest in them.
John Enck, a vice-president and research director at analyst
firm Gartner, said that this year, "IT managers should expect to be
deluged with a new wave of server appliances offering everything
from simple single-function operations - for example, file servers,
Java Virtual Machine processing and so on - to completely
integrated applications, operating systems and hardware
systems."
According to Enck, after an unsuccessful run in the early 2000s,
application and hardware suppliers are now returning to the
appliance model for financial reasons. Software suppliers are
eyeing the hardware revenues, and hardware suppliers are looking to
gain some application and operating system revenues.
Gartner's main advice to users evaluating appliances is to
ensure that the devices integrate into their current management
systems. Second, users should ensure that the upfront cost savings
of an appliance model offset the ongoing, often higher
administration costs of the appliance.
Despite these management issues, many users across the sectors
have some experience of appliances.
One of the most popular appliances is the remote access security
appliance, which provides secure
virtual private network (VPN)
browser-based access to applications and data from any remote
computer, encrypting traffic at both ends so it remains secure.
Virgin Atlantic, the Labour Party,
Birmingham City Council, games manufacturer Hasbro and utility
firm EDF Energy are among those using VPN appliances.
According to a Forrester Research report on enterprise gateway
security appliances, the main suppliers of virtual private network
appliances based on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption
technology are Juniper Networks, Aventail and Citrix Systems.
Robert Whiteley, a senior analyst at Forrester, said, "Juniper
Networks maintains its SSL VPN leadership thanks to its superior
reverse proxy technology (which only allows access to specific
corporate applications and data) and focus on secure mobility.
"Aventail trails close behind with its fully integrated
end-point security and similar strength in mobile device access.
Citrix Systems and Microsoft also provide leading technology that
focuses on access and acceleration for corporate applications."
Microsoft entered the SSL VPN system market last year when it
acquired Whale Communications, the developer of the popular e-Gap
SSL VPN appliance.
Caymas Systems is another supplier of SSL VPN appliances. Caymas
Systems has an innovative approach that combines remote and local
network access control in a single appliance, an approach also
taken F5 Networks, Cisco and Nortel. Cisco and Nortel combine two
secure VPN technologies - IP security and SSL - in a single
appliance.
Enterprise gateway security appliances can be used to
authenticate users in combination with two-factor authentication
tokens such as RSA Security's SecurID, which provides one-time
passwords to remote workers.
Another popular type of appliance are those that plug into the
network and monitor all network traffic to ensure it remains
secure.
Arcadia Group implemented a network monitor in May this year.
Arcadia is one of the largest clothing retailers in the UK, with
more than 25,000 employees and over 3,000 staff using the IT
system.
Arcadia installed Secure Computing's Webwasher enterprise
gateway appliance to protect employee and customer data from being
inappropriately accessed or transferred, and also to help enforce
its internet access policies.
These policies include blocking inappropriate material,
regardless of whether it is encrypted via SSL. Webwasher is one of
the few security appliance products that can scan encrypted SSL
traffic.
The choice of anti-virus and anti-spam appliances is also
growing as security suppliers including Trend Micro and Finjan
develop hardware appliance versions of their software products.
Earlier this year, global consumer packaging group Rexam piloted
Trend Micro's new Interscan Messaging Security Appliance
(IMSA).
Rexam had been using Trend Micro's Scanmail and Interscan
Messaging Security Suite software products to protect its 8,000
users around the world. However, the firm opted to trial IMSA
because it was simpler to deploy, supported a high throughput of
data traffic and had hardware redundancy to ensure it worked around
the clock.
Antonio Traetto, global messaging manager at Rexam, said that
the trial went well, and that adopting the appliance meant the firm
could continue its Linux strategy.
"We are looking at switching from a Windows-based system to
Linux, and IMSA runs on Linux too. Our objective is to make
internal support and management easier, so if the hardware and
software come from Trend Micro it will save doubling up on support
and also warranty costs," said Traetto.
Another class of server appliance that is gaining in popularity
is the network attached processing (Nap) or "compute" appliance,
which can offload computing operations onto a dedicated box.
Azul is one such Nap appliance supplier, and released the first
box, the Vega 1 compute appliance, in 2005, specifically designed
to help with Java application performance.
Last year, Azul issued the more powerful Vega 2 device, boosting
the processor and memory specification from 24 core processors with
96Gbytes of Ram, to 48 cores. The latest Vega 2 appliances will
feature multi-way processor systems with a total of 768 core
processors, supported by 768Gbytes of Ram.
"The proposition that Azul's device offers is to transparently
offload applications from the Java Application Server to the
compute appliance, where multiple processor cores and large
memories are at the disposal of the application, all managed by the
Azul Virtual Machine with no change to the original applications,"
said Michael Azoff, a senior research analyst at Butler Group.
"An important endorsement of compute appliances is Azul's recent
deal with BT, which has allowed the telecoms company to reduce
datacentre costs for its gateway infrastructure, helping to meet a
massive growth in business with cost-effective systems. Reductions
in power consumption and cooling requirements are also a factor in
the savings."
It is clear that network, storage, computing, security and other
types of appliances are fast becoming part of the IT
infrastructure.
However, Enck offers a warning to users. "Although the
appliances are certainly more attractive in this new wave of
offerings, they still pose the problem that was a barrier to the
first wave: non-integrated management. Simply put, these appliances
will contain their own administrative and management interfaces
that may or may not tie into broader datacentre management
tools.
"As attractive as these appliances may seem, IT managers must
assess the impact they have on existing datacentre management
systems. By 2010, lack of integrated management features will limit
single-function workload appliances (carrying out database
management, data warehousing, Java execution, file serving and SSL
encryption) to tactical deployments of less than 10% penetration in
the datacentre."
By adopting more and more single-function appliances, could we,
as Gartner warns, be storing up serious IT management issues for
the future? If we are, we had better be ready for another wave of
hardware consolidation further down the line.
Azul accelerates
the datacentre >>
Cisco routers >>
Nortel routers >>
Azul compute appliances >>
Trend Micro Gateway Security Appliance >>
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