Richard Campbell has posted a detailed blog entry describing the challenges and (part of the) innerworkings of the Strangeloop AppScaler.
"Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced the availability of a new software-based WAN optimization client that extends LAN-like application performance to mobile employees, even when they are working outside of branch office locations. In an industry first, Citrix will also demonstrate the new Citrix WANScaler™ client working seamlessly with its market-leading Citrix Access Gateway™ SSL VPN solution at Interop Las Vegas 2007 this week, eliminating the traditional trade off between fast application performance and secure application access for mobile employees."
Read more: http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=657501
In the category: 'interesting numbers', I just ran across this info-bit on the Citrix website:
With industry analysts expecting the WAN optimization market to double to more than $1.2 billion by 2009(1), and an estimated 55 percent of all employees worldwide accessing their applications from branch offices, WAN optimization solutions are rapidly becoming a critical infrastructure requirement for enterprises around the world.
1) Gartner Dataquest: Forecast: Application Acceleration Equipment, Worldwide, 2005-2010, Aug. 10, 2006, Joe Skorupa.
Good design, smart data access and optimizing the results of your web service are good way to improve performance of your web service. In an earlier post I also mentioned turning off XML schema validation. As it turn out, this may not be necessary.
A company called Stampede offers a solution for improving Web Service perfomance by offloading XML schema validation!!!
The product is actually much more comprehensive than that, read below a copy from an interesting piece of text from their website.
SOA Optimization Services
The Stampede Web 2.0 Performance Series also addresses the demands placed on the network and Web servers as a result of the proliferation of XML data and Service Oriented Architecture applications. Stampede's client and appliance technology are now XML-aware, and add services specifically designed to optimize this environment.
- XML Document Differencing extends our Cache Differencing technology to only transmit the actual changes in the XML document; significantly reducing the data that is transmitted
- XML Schema Validation to validate the grammar of the XML message, and ensure the message does not contain unexpected or potentially malicious content
- XML Content Based Routing enables routing decisions to be made based on a dynamic analysis of the XML document
XML Threat Management Services
The transaction intensive demands of Web Services, AJAX and other XML applications require bullet-proof security. XML applications are vulnerable to maliciously corrupted data, denial of service (DoS) attacks, and intrusion attempts. The Stampede Web 2.0 Performance Series provides hardened security features to address these issues.
- XML Content Inspection uses parallel hardware to do symantec threat analysis on the entire XML message
- XML Well-formedness Checking protects the host environment against non-malicious message corruption
- XML Denial of Service (XDoS) Detection provides detection of specific XML parser attacks
- Message Anomaly Detection provides adjustable tolerance levels for recognition of message traffic patterns and identification of packet anomalies
Microsoft and Citrix have released a press release stating that they will be working together closely to use WANScaler technology to improve Application Access and Address Branch Office Complexity.
Citrix acquired WANScaler technology recently, adding WAN Optimization to their Application Delivery Strategy, by the take over of Orbital Data.
MRA Group is EMEA Gold Partner for both NetScalar as well as WANScaler technology.
One minute I'm learning stuff about Orbital applicances, the next Orbital Data has been purchased by Citrix. Read more on the Citrix website.
I know I was impressed with Orbital, but here are the reasons why Citrix thinks they're great:
- Best Ease-of-Use. Unlike alternative products that can be difficult to deploy and manage, Orbital Data offers several unique capabilities that make it virtually “plug-and-play,” a critical advantage for under-staffed IT departments in remote branch office locations. Its AutoOptimizer™ technology automatically applies the best combination of performance-boosting techniques for each data flow to match the application, the data and the network conditions without requiring configuration or management changes. Orbital Data is also the only solution on the market to feature true “network and application transparency,” meaning that network monitoring tools, firewalls, routers and applications need no modification when the Orbital solution is deployed. Just plug it in, and it works. This advantage will help drive faster adoption throughout the existing Citrix installed base and will make the Orbital solution an ideal fit for the extensive Citrix channel.
- Best Solution for Small Branches and Mobile Users. Orbital Data was the first company in the industry to deliver a compact, software-based version of its branch appliance technology that can be deployed directly on a remote user’s PC. In contrast, most alternative solutions are delivered only as appliances, limiting their value to employees who are physically located in a large branch office. Solutions that do offer software clients are limited to accelerating only a narrow class of applications. Orbital Data’s software client addresses both of these limitations, accelerating all TCP-based applications to all remote users, including employees in small “micro branches,” home offices or on the road. This client capability also provides an ideal strategic fit with Citrix’s end-to-end strategy, extending application delivery from the datacenter to the desktop.
- Best Acceleration over Long Distances. The Orbital Data solution excels in some of the most problematic branch office application delivery scenarios, most notably file sharing and bulk data transfer applications that deliver large files over long distances. With the growing importance of business requirements such as disaster recovery, outsourcing, digital asset management and collaborative engineering, these advantages can be significant to many large enterprises.
- Best Acceleration of Citrix Presentation Server. Orbital Data also offers the best solution to further accelerate applications delivered by other Citrix products, most notably, Citrix Presentation Server™. In internal tests, Orbital Data has been shown to improve the performance of Presentation Server by as much as five times for end users, especially for remote printing and local file save tasks that necessitate the transfer of large volumes of data over the WAN. This capability gives Citrix an ideal opportunity to leverage its installed base of more than 160,000 Citrix Presentation Server customers and presence in enterprise WANs across the globe.
- Highly Extensible Architecture. Orbital Data also offers a highly-extensible architecture, making it easier for Citrix to add innovative new capabilities, including tighter integration with other elements of the Citrix end-to-end application delivery infrastructure.
Yesterday I had a training from Spyro Papademetriou from Orbital Data. I now know all there is to know about accelerating Wide Area Network's using the Orbital appliances.
It's tremendous what they can do in optimizing your connection. Up to 4600 times faster connections. At first I didn't quite believe it, but now, understanding the underlying technology and having seen the demo: I'm a believer!
The demo showed a 4MB powerpoint taking about 3 minutes (=180 seconds) to download from the States to the Netherlands over a WiFi connection in the conference area. Using the Orbital appliance it went down to about 15 seconds. After changing the powerpoint and the uploading of the same file back to the server only took 9 seconds. Cool!
Living in the world of software we often try and solve all our performance issues by optimizing queries, fine tuning applications and generally looking at any point in the application which can be improved.
Being an architect also means looking outside the box, or maybe more accurately: at the box. What is the hardware and hardware environment that my system, my website, my webapplication is running in? There are some quite interesting hardware solutions to optimizing network traffic and minimizing server load. I've been recently approached by MRA Group and was so intrigued by the solutions that they offer that it didn't take much for me to become their VP Sales for North America.
Strong points about the webacceleration solutions that we offer are that:
a) they are non-intrusive - no code needs to be changes
b) the solution is hardware based - it's a box!
c) the solution is easy to install, easy to manage - we offer a unique monitoring dashboard
d) the solution is a full service solution - you don't need to do anything.
Check out the website for more details:
www.mra-group.com
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