Data Center Links: Mellanox, Akamai, Cariden

Here’s our review of some of this week’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Mellanox launches SDN switch.  Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced SwitchX-2, the next generation of its switch silicon optimized for Software Defined Networking (SDN). SwitchX-2 enables IT managers to program and centralize their server and storage interconnect management and features advanced capabilities of remote configurable routing tables, lossless and congestion free networks, efficient control planes, and SDN-optimized software interfaces. It is based on Mellanox’s Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technology which allows for simultaneous connection to InfiniBand or Ethernet with integrated gateways to legacy data center and storage systems. The switch features 4Tb/s switching capacity, a low power footprint and 170 nanosecond latency. “Mellanox’s SwitchX-2 VPI switch leads the industry with the highest throughput capacity, low latency with nearly zero jitter, as well as advanced SDN interfaces for control and management,” said David Barzilai, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “SDN technology has been a critical component of the InfiniBand scalable architecture and has been proven worldwide in data centers and clusters of tens-of-thousands of servers."

Akamai introduces Aqua Ion.  Akamai Technologies (AKAM) introduced Aqua Ion, an new way to layer and intelligently apply a comprehensive set of optimizations, including front-end optimization (FEO), as well as third-party and mobile-specific enhancements designed to allow organizations to help optimize web experiences across a wide range of use cases or situations. Aqua Ion will help traditional web sites transition into more complex, richer web experiences. FEO seeks to adaptively apply optimization techniques for each end-user, based on sophisticated analysis of the web application as well as real-time conditions specific to the end-user's environment. "With Aqua Ion, we're taking a large step forward by providing a powerful set of integrated technologies designed to intelligently optimize performance for the unique requirements of the web experience. It's no longer enough to think about one situation and not practical to deploy a collection of disparate tools," said Mike Afergan, senior vice president and general manager, Web Experience Business Unit, Akamai. "The new Web technologies introduced in just the past five years have shifted the focus away from simple websites to highly engaging Web ‘experiences' delivered across browsers, networks and devices."

Cariden advances MATE products and services.  Cariden Technologies announced new products and services in its MATE portfolio designed to extract accurate business relevant information more quickly and easily. MATE is Cariden's network planning and simulation tool for data collection and analysis. A new Flow Collection interface allows users to collect and analyze NetFlow, S-Flow and J-Flow data to determine the cost of traffic flows and monitor their use of network resources. The MATE Collector differs from others by providing enhanced accuracy of the collected flow data by ensuring results match existing traffic counter data and adjusting the final matrix accordingly. Greater scalability exists as well, with the ability to instrument an entire network at a fraction of the current cost. Cariden also announced additional features such as allowing for intuitive modeling of the impact to the network when peering connections change due to outages, as well as other new features for MATE Live, MATE Design and MATE Collector. Frank Hellemink, VP of Network Engineering of Kabel Deutschland said, “As Germany's largest cable operator, service quality is paramount for our customers; any network congestion will hurt customer satisfaction so we are always looking for ways to increase the control and predictability we have. Cariden's solution gives us the flow visibility we want and provides greater accuracy in our traffic matrix measurement. This fully integrated approach makes understanding and planning changes to our network straightforward.”