By Linda Leung, VNU Net
The Networld + Interop trade show in Atlanta opened its doors to
50,000 delegates this week who saw the launch of a host of products
to improve the speed and performance of the internet. Intel fleshed
out its Netstructure range of network devices with the 1520 Cache
for T1 environments. It supports up to 15Mbps of data throughput
and includes Inktomi’s Traffic Server Engine.
Network service providers can use the product to build caching
hierarchies which Intel claims enable individual cache appliances
to work together as an intelligent caching network to offload
servers and move content closer to end users.
Also launched was the Netstructure 7185 Ecommerce Director,
which combines security acceleration with content-aware traffic
management to improve the speed of secure SSL transactions. It
provides active Layer 7 session recovery and enables automatic
detection of HTTP 400, 500 and 600 errors. A 7145 version provides
Layer 4 traffic management.
Improving content delivery is also the goal of Digital Fountain,
which is competing with caching vendors such as Akamai and Inktomi
with a product that helps protect against network loss and
congestion.
While caching suppliers have focused on moving content to the
edge of the network, Digital Fountain has developed algorithms that
convert the content so that it can be delivered to millions of
users simultaneously, without significantly increasing server load,
claimed the company.
The algorithm encodes the content into meta form which is sent
as a continuous stream of data. This means that if a portion is
lost, the content can always be reunited when the missing portion
is resent.
Digital Fountain is suitable for any media-based content that
requires high bandwidth.
UK-based Link Guard has begun an ambitious project of mapping
the web using its link management technology. Link Guard’s service
is aimed at websites that provide links to third-party sites. It
checks sites for broken links and automatically sends alerts and
updates if the links are out of date or no longer work.
The company provides the service free of charge to users that
provide their URL. A Pro version, available for $50, also checks
Java script and secure SSL pages.
Timpanogas Research Group (TRG), which was set up by a
group of former senior Novell engineers, demonstrated its
Novell Netware-compatible clustered file system on a Linux cluster
server.
Called the M-Squared Clustered Netware File System, the
product is the first clustered and symmetric multiprocessing
implementation of the native Netware file system running on
Linux. It provides distributed mirroring and fully striped and
distributed file system volumes across a cluster of Linux
servers.
The company is also developing Manos, an open source
Netware-compatible operating system for the Linux environment which
is due for release in the second half of next year. TRG is also
working on a range of directory services and desktop management
tools for Manos. The product will be aimed as an open source
alternative to Netware.