Juniper Networks and Silver Peak Systems are looking to grow their offerings in the application acceleration space.

Juniper on Oct. 16 will address the need to scale deployments of its WXC line of application acceleration appliances by introducing a new high-end version and an update to the line's operating system software.

The WXC 590 is intended for use in data centers and supports up to 140 remote sites and DS-3 45M-bps WAN links. It reduces the number of appliances required to achieve those data rates and site density, thus simplifying larger-scale deployments.

"We are replacing stacks of devices with a single, more powerful device," said Mike Banic, senior director of product marketing at Juniper, in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"For a DS-3 data center link, we used to have to use three WX 500s. Now you need less rack space [and] less power, and they're more simple to deploy and manage."

Three WXC 590s and an aggregator device can support OC-3 155M-bps links and 420 remote sites.

Previously that level of support required six devices. The WX appliances work in pairs between remote branch office sites and a central data center to accelerate applications traffic over low-latency, lower-speed WAN links.

Driving the need to scale such deployments is the trend to consolidate data centers and servers into central locations.

"As more users in remote branches need to go to the data center to access applications and complete transactions, there is more traffic," Banic said.

Current Juniper WXC users at Ghafari Associates, in Dearborn, Mich., don't yet see a need for the new WXC 590 appliance, but that could change, said Robert Bell, director of IT at the architectural and engineering company.

Click here to read more about Juniper's application acceleration aspirations.

"I don't see us buying one in the real near future, but if we keep growing, I could see us stepping into something like that," Bell said.

Juniper's operating system upgrade, WXOS Version 5.4, also contributes to performance gains and broadens the types of applications that can be accelerated. It includes an advanced disk-warming function that allows the software's network sequence-caching function to work in either direction between the data center and a remote site.

WXOS 5.4 also accelerates traffic for the Samba open-source version of Microsoft's CFIS (Common Internet File System) protocol and adds high-availability features, including the ability to load-balance multiple WX or WXC appliances.

Juniper also enhanced the WX CMS (Central Management System) software, which provides central configuration, monitoring and management of distributed WX and WXC appliances.

WX CMS Version 5.4 features a new event management console and matrix showing a summary of error conditions as well as system and performance events that occurred on multiple WX/WXC platforms.

The new appliance and software updates are available now.

Also on Oct. 16, Silver Peak will launch its new high-end appliance, the NX-8500, supporting up to 500M-bps data rates.

It is intended for data-center-to-data-center replication. Silver Peak will introduce its new SCA (Secure Content Architecture), which reinforces disk encryption and adds deep-packet inspection, laying the foundation for future deployments of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption.

The SCA is available now, and the NX-8500 is due by year's end.

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