Cisco launches new application-delivery products

Computerworld - Cisco Systems Inc. today announced products designed to speed up and improve application delivery over networks.

Its new Application Control Engine (ACE) 4710 Appliance, currently shipping at $15,995, will accelerate applications for end users and reduce costs by limiting data center power and cooling requirements, said George Kurian, general manager of Cisco's application-delivery unit. The product is designed for small and midsize businesses and will support up to 2Gbit/sec. of application traffic, as well as 50 virtual devices from a single application.

Ultimately, it can help increase Web application performance by several times, Cisco said in a statement.

Also shipping is a new Cisco Wide Area Applications Services (WAAS) Mobile software package that consists of server software for $5,000 and 25 concurrent user licenses for $8,750, Cisco said. Larger concurrent-user licenses are also available.

WAAS Mobile provides application acceleration for TCP-based applications in the WAN used by mobile or remote workers, Kurian said.

A new Application Profiling Service offers custom support to customers to help them profile the performance of various applications and come up with recommendations on technology that can improve performance.

Affiliated Computer Services Inc. in Dallas said it has deployed both the Cisco WAAS and ACE internally and plans to deploy the portfolio for its integration customers. The products can be integrated into existing points throughout a network to optimize a broad range of applications, regardless of where they are stored, said Tom Gibson, strategic business unit executive at Affiliated Computer Services.

"Cisco's application-delivery technology increases end-user productivity and accelerates business opportunities for our company, as well as [those of] our clients," Gibson said.

Cisco also announced that it has validated the software performance over a network to support applications from Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., SAP AG and BEA Systems Inc.

The ACE appliance and the WAAS Mobile software "fill gaps" in Cisco's product mix, said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Inc.

Riverbed Technology Inc. and F5 Networks Inc. have been the application-delivery market leaders so far, and "rightfully so," Kerravala said, because they could demonstrate how their products improve application performance for complex applications such as SAP software. Now, Cisco is saying it also can validate its own software's capabilities, he added.

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