Comdex - NetScaler claims new switches save server costs

LAS VEGAS - You're a network manager and times are tough. You've gone through staff layoffs, your budget has been trimmed and despite the slumping economy, your network is getting more traffic than ever and all eyes are on you to keep it up and running. What do you do?

According to NetScaler you throw in one of its new Request Switch 6000 Series traffic management products and increase your capacity and network reliability without having to shell out cash for more servers.

"(Before the economic downturn) people didn't care. They just wrote checks and threw hardware at their problems, but we can let companies do more with less," said NetScaler Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President Prabakar Sundarrajan.

More for less seems to be the theme of IT buying this year, and Sundarrajan, speaking at a noticeably slimmer Comdex Fall in Las Vegas Tuesday, believes that products such at NetScaler's Request Switches are the answer for strapped network managers.

NetScaler just unveiled the Request Switch 6000 Series Monday, which manages network traffic at a granular application request level, has surge protection and protects against denial-of-service attacks and site intrusion attempts. The new switches will be available in the U.S. later this month and are sold as pairs in redundant configurations to provide high availability, priced from $15,000 to $45,000.

"We are looking to support more users with faster response times using the same or fewer resources," said Patrick Conte, NetScaler executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

The company's Request Switch 6000 Series achieves this by utilizing cache redirection, load balancing and content switching. NetScaler claims its switches can increase throughput of servers or caches by up to 300% and improve end-user response times by the same amount.

"People are being told to add more support, yet the management is saying that they cannot give you any more money. We can solve that," said Sundarrajan.

Free ISP NetZero purchased NetScaler switches to replace some Cisco CSS 11000 Series switches when their network became inundated with new users and couldn't handle the traffic. NetZero executives seemed happy with the results.

"The numbers were phenomenal. We were able to reduce delays and handle over 500,000 concurrent connections," said Albert Valerio, NetZero network engineer manager.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.