 Network OptimizationThis newsletter is sponsored by Cisco & Verizon Verizon Business Turns the Tide for Ocean Beauty Seafoods Network World's Network Optimization Newsletter, 05/24/07SMB balancing actBy Ann BednarzFull featured load-balancing products have more than enough muscle to solve the traffic-management requirements of a small or midsize business. The trouble is, top-of-the-line products generally come with top-tier prices. To fill in what they see as a gap in the market, executives at Kemp Technologies have made a business of going after smaller enterprises with the company’s line of affordable server load balancing and SSL acceleration products. The latest addition to the Kemp lineup is the LoadMaster 1600. Unveiled last week, the LoadMaster 1600 is the first product from Kemp to use its Version 4.0 operating system. In the new model, Kemp took steps to simplify configuration, improve DDoS mitigation, speed SSL processing and provide more secure remote management capabilities.
A goal of the vendor was to provide a device that requires as little IT support as possible, according to Kemp CEO Kevin Mahon, who says the 1600 is as easy to configure as a wireless router for the home. Then there’s the price: The 1600 costs $2,500, which includes one year of software upgrades and technical support. Kemp also offers a redundant configuration for $4,500. A key addition to the appliance is an ASIC that offloads the SSL processing work. “SSL processing takes up a tremendous amount of CPU utilization,” Mahon says. “We’re now able to give much greater performance inside the 1600 than we were able to give in the 1500.” The new chipset from VIA Technologies also is energy efficient -- a feature that resonates well with data center managers, Mahon says. “In our facilities here, we’re typically burning 50 or so of these at a time for testing purposes and things like that. We have a 20-amp breaker there, and that’s it. All 50 of them are running on that.” Mahon is a former F5 Networks executive who in 2000 helped launch Kemp as a reseller of F5 gear. After a couple of years in business, the company decided what the market needed was a source for more affordable load balancing gear. “We changed our model from being a reseller and went out and got our own product,” Mahon recalls. Kemp initially licensed software created by a German company called Brain Force Holding through an OEM agreement and later bought the load-balancing software outright. It shipped its first LoadMaster products in early 2004 and this spring passed the 1,000 units-shipped milestone. The company is growing at a rate of about 65% quarter-to-quarter, Mahon says. “We’re not trying to say that we have the trillion gigabit performance levels of other bigger boxes that are out there, but our performance levels are pretty good. We can do 100Mbps.” One of Kemp’s biggest market barriers is perception -- and lack thereof. Many SMBs aren’t aware of what a load balancer can do for their systems, Mahon says. Those that are aware tend to think the technology is too expensive. “We have to break down those two barriers,” Mahon says. As greater numbers of SMBs move to do business on the Internet, Mahon expects demand for affordable traffic-management devices to grow. SMBs will realize they can’t afford to skimp on consistency and availability, he says. “As SMBs go to e-commerce, they have to provide the same availability and the same functionality such as SSL and persistence that the big enterprise companies do, or they die.”
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| Contact the author: Ann Bednarz is an associate news editor at Network World responsible for editing daily news content. She previously covered enterprise applications, e-commerce and telework trends for Network World. E-mail Ann. This newsletter is sponsored by Cisco & Verizon Verizon Business Turns the Tide for Ocean Beauty Seafoods ARCHIVEArchive of the Network Optimization Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
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