Peribit Boosts App Performance Over WANs

Peribit Networks on Monday rolled out new technology that enables its bandwidth optimization appliances to improve the performance of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft file services and Web-based applications over WANs.

Through a new version of its operating system, Sequence Reduction System Version 5.1, Peribit is adding performance acceleration capabilities to its appliances around three protocols: MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface), which is used by Exchange; CIFS (Common Internet File System), a Microsoft file services protocol; and Web protocol HTTP. Peribit dubs the application acceleration technology Application Flow Accelerator, or AppFlow for short.

AppFlow enables those protocols to benefit from Peribit's TCP acceleration, which speeds application performance and reduces bandwidth consumption, said Mike Banic, vice president of corporate marketing at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Peribit.

"We focus on improving application performance over the WAN to make performance for [users at] branch offices look closer to that of a user at headquarters sitting next to the data center," Banic said.

Peribit's new application-specific performance enhancement will improve customers' WAN performance as a whole, allowing them to get more out of their WAN links, said Jerry Basset, vice president and partner at Structured Communications, a solution provider in Portland, Ore. "With a T1, you can give 10 applications across it, where before two might burden it," he said.Reducing bandwidth consumption of commonly used applications like Exchange also enables IT departments to allocate a greater percentage of the WAN pipe to other applications, Basset said. Structured Communications customers using Peribit's technology commonly see performance improvements of 30 percent to 50 percent or more, depending on the application, he added.

Peribit's new capabilities also will ease clients' moves toward server consolidation, which often can result in service degradation for remote users, said Dennis Bailey, vice president and principal engineer at Invictus, a New York-based solution provider. "You're not going to have users calling to say every time they open e-mail, it's taking five minutes to open up," he said.

Customers are increasingly implementing server consolidation strategies to keep up with regulatory requirements for data storage and backup, according to Bailey. "Consolidation is happening because of regulations and as part of business-continuity planning and disaster recovery," he said. "You have more control over data itself [through consolidation]."

In addition, Peribit is expanding its portfolio through a branch-office version of its Sequence Mirror product, the SM-250. The vendor also boosted the scalability of its systems through new clustering capabilities that enable up to six SM-500s to connect to one SR-100 Sequence Reducer appliance to support OC-3 WAN links.

SRS Version 5.1 is scheduled for availability this month across Peribit's full range of Sequence Reducer and Sequence Mirror appliances. The SM-250 also will be available this month starting at $4,995.0