Cisco, 3Com to offer apps-aware switches

While content-based Web switches and load-balancing devices from upstarts ArrowPoint and HydraWEB may have the attention of users and analysts for now, Cisco and 3Com are promising to stir things up when they deliver similar devices early next year.

Observers say such products should be a significant improvement over traditional switching and load-balancing packages, which essentially send client requests to whichever server is least busy at the time of the request.

The latest products have more intelligence to look deeper into incoming packets and route requests to content- or application-specific servers. Using logical clustering arrangements, end users can set up server farms that are content and application specific.

"This level of intelligence is going to be an absolute requirement for anyone doing e-commerce. You are allowing a network manager to implement a lot of traffic prioritization and bandwidth control with these types of products, and just having Layer 4 switching capabilities is not going to be enough," says Esmerelda Silva, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. "Essentially, the ability to really provide a deeper level of awareness of specific content of packets is critical."

ArrowPoint announced its URL-aware content Web switches, the CS-100 and CS-800, in April 1998. This week, HydraWEB will announce plans to offer a stand-alone load-balancing device, dubbed the Hydra2500, by year-end. The Hydra2500 incorporates both URL- and application-aware intelligence.

Cisco plans to incorporate the same type of intelligence into its switch software - starting with the Catalyst line in March - by integrating existing and new features from its LocalDirector server connection management software. Cisco now offers a management and troubleshooting tool, the Content Verification System, that essentially polls server and application availability as an add-on to LocalDirector. For end users, the integrated product will provide a single content-aware switching device, which means fewer hardware and software components to manage and more automated decision-making in response to requests for content and applications.

3Com has plans to license the content-based switching technology it will incorporate into its CoreBuilder 9000 switches from F5 Networks. On Nov. 15, 3Com announced a reseller agreement with F5 aimed at e-commerce and Web hosting customers. Cam Cullen, senior technical marketing manager for LAN solutions at 3Com, says by midyear the company should be able to deliver fully integrated switch products that are similar to what Cisco will offer.

Vendors and analysts say the greatest demand for smarter switches will be from companies running e-commerce and other Web sites, although companies operating high-demand application servers are also likely customers.

At Wall Street On Demand, a company that focuses on Web hosting for financial services companies such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Goldman Sachs, HydraWEB load balancers have replaced traditional switches and increased site uptime. "It's like night and day," says Jeff Garnett, director of operations at Wall Street On Demand.

Garnett says server problems were forcing staff to reboot some servers every day - making downtime a problem. "It was a nightmare to manage because we had no way to control our downtime and were at the mercy of hardware and software failures."

With the ability to have requests directed only to servers that are available and running smoothly, in addition to being able to group servers into logical clusters, a single point of failure is no longer an issue.

Another benefit of the new integrated switches is that they can eliminate the need for multiple devices performing separate tasks. In the case of LocalDirector and existing Catalyst switches, the hardware and software are separate. This complicates network management, Silva says.