NetEX HyperIP Accelerates Data Transfer

NetEX (Network Executive Software) has announced HyperIP, an appliance that allows organizations with data networks made up of Cisco devices to run wide-area network (WAN) optimization software without having to add third-party hardware to their networks. There is often resistance between network administrations who want to stay with an all-Cisco network and application owners accustomed to using WAN optimization products that require an additional, non-Cisco physical appliance, says Bob MacIntyre, vice president of business development and marketing for NetEX. With HyperIP, users are "not putting in yet another piece of gear that has to be managed, but are putting software into an existing infrastructure based on VMware."

HyperIP lets users move data efficiently over a long distances, such as either between two data centers or from the data center to a branch office. The software uses a proprietary transport protocol that runs over User Datagram Protocol (UDP), rather than over the more typical Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), MacIntyre says.

UDP is not connection-oriented in the same way TCP/IP is, and doesn't guarantee delivery, so UDP can be significantly faster than TCP/IP because it doesn't require sent data to be acknowledged, which causes a pause in TCP transmission. Hyper-IP was developed for communicating with geosynchronous satellites, and it is particularly forgiving of long latency, which is helpful when users are sending data long distances.

In addition, the software looks for opportunities to compress data traffic, and the final result is that users with HyperIP can see from three- to ten times improvement in performance. In fact, in one recent test, the user saw a 46x improvement, the company claims. The software-only product is removing some of the obstacles, MacIntyre says.

"Instead of a Cisco-centric environment adding another vendor's hardware-based appliance, such as those from Riverbed [Technology], Blue Coat [Systems Inc.], or Silver Peak [Systems Inc.], IT environments can simply install a software-based solution onto an existing server platform that complements Cisco solutions," says Greg Schulz, founder of the StorageIO industry research and consulting firm. "The benefit is the ability to get more effective bandwidth or throughput out of existing networking technology to do more work in a given amount of time and move more data for business continuity, data recovery, or high availability over longer distances."Currently, the software works with VMWare  hypervisor, but the company has also announced that it plans to provide support for Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor, which it expects to be available in the next month or two, and, eventually, for Citrix Systems Inc.'s Xen hypervisor, he says. HyperIP is available now starting at $2,056 per server (meaning a minimum of two are required) for a 1.5 mbps data connection. Data transmission speed scales up to 800 mbps, MacIntyre says. Users who wish to increase their data rates can do so with a software key, rather than by requiring a hardware update, he adds.