Identifying places to cache

In recent months, Web acceleration vendors have begun releasing products that provide enterprises a comprehensive set of services. In that vein, vendor Expand Networks is providing enterprises with one-stop shopping for network management and network optimization.

Last month Expand announced an alliance with network management software vendor Entuity. Through the alliance, enterprises can use Entuity's network management capabilities to determine exactly how their networks could benefit from Expand appliances.

For those not familiar with Expand, it is a caching vendor that uses patented technology to cache all traffic types that cross the network, including IP and non-IP traffic. Expand's appliances combine vertical data analysis (which separates protocol information, such as headers, from packets and uses algorithms to reduce their size), selective caching and data compression to optimize bandwidth throughput. Expand execs claim their technology can improve network performance by as much as 400%.

Entuity's Eye of the Storm software gives network managers insight into how their networks are performing, uncovering any network problems and pinpointing their locations. Entuity provides enterprises with a comprehensive network performance assessment.

Enterprises can then use that information to figure out how Expand can best serve their network needs, says Pedro Colaco, an Expand vice president. "Entuity helps enterprises pinpoint the best spot to deploy our appliances," he says.

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Denise Dubie is a Staff Writer covering network management at Network World. She also works as a freelance writer in the Boston area. You can reach her at ddubie@nww.com.