Routers/Switches /

Intel loads net cannon

By APRIL JACOBS
Network World, 02/14/00

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. - The products Intel will announce at its Developer Forum this week should clear up any doubts that the company is becoming a network force to be reckoned with.

Ripe with acquired and home-grown technology, the company will announce communications products for switching and traffic load balancing products dubbed NetStructure, specifically designed to address the hassles faced by companies when they try to integrate e-commerce traffic management into their networks. The announcements will be part of a broad product rollout, according to sources close to Intel. Intel declined to comment on the announcements.

The NetStructure family

The new line of communications products will include the NetStructure e-Commerce Accelerator 7110 and a family of devices called NetStructure Traffic Directors. The boxes are designed to speed e-commerce transactions and be easy for network professionals to install. The e-Commerce Accelerator is at least in part derived from technology Intel obtained through its $500 million purchase of Ipivot last fall.

The e-Commerce Accelerator 7110 serves as an encryption/decryption device used to process secure transaction requests. The device sits on the network between a front-end server and back-end host and will be able to handle as many as 1,000 secure transactions per second.

The box works with most major Web servers, including Apache, and those from Microsoft and the Sun/ Netscape Alliance. A key feature will be technology that allows the device to offload cryptographic-related processing for secure transaction requests that would otherwise be processed on a Web server. The idea is to speed up overall transaction time.

The NetStructure Traffic Director includes three models; the 7140, 7170 and 7190. The 7140 addresses Layer 4 traffic management issues, using response times to balance traffic loads between servers. Network managers can set priorities for requests, including e-commerce transactions. This device could sit between a router and server farm.

The 7170 uses Layer 7 application-specific switching to prioritize requests based on user profiles and URL addresses. The 7190 MultiSite Director allows companies with e-commerce servers in different locations to send requests to whichever server location can process the transaction most efficiently.

Sources say the traffic control and security features of the Traffic Directors and e-Commerce Accelerator pro-ducts may also be added to Intel's existing Layer 2/3 Express 6000 switch - a device aimed at the large enterprise, according to one source close to Intel.

Building support for IX

As part of this announcement, Intel also plans to trot out a bevy of network companies supporting its Intel Exchange Architecture (IX). The architecture, for which Intel set up a $200 million investment fund in September 1999, defines reprogrammable silicon for use in network devices such as routers and is based on open standards.

Supporters of IX include Cisco and 11 other vendors. Sources close to Intel say at least a dozen others will be added to the list this week, but Intel declines to name those vendors.

The Internet is exactly why Intel is choosing to place so much emphasis on - and so much money into - network gear, according to a spokesman for Intel. His assessment that the Intel Developer Forum, "is becoming a place for networking" is an understatement looking at the past year of Intel network-related announcements.

Network fortification

In the second half of 1999, the company spent more than $2.15 billion to buy five companies that fortified its virtual private network, IP telephony and network management technologies. Those acquisitions included Ipivot's e-commerce management equipment, DSP Communications' wireless chipsets and software, and Parity's software for IP telephony applications.

IP telephony improvements - and Intel's contributions to the market - will be significant for large companies, says Dataquest's Martin Reynolds, because over the next few years it will bring both potential burdens and benefits to network managers.

The good news is that voice over IP will become increasingly attractive as vendors make the improvements necessary to guarantee quality of service and fully integrate voice and data onto the desktop, eliminating the need for separate PBX systems. But with that integration will come increasingly complex network systems - capable of handling voice and data efficiently. Technology from Intel and others that can simplify the maintenance and upgrades to those systems will be sorely needed.

Intel already announced it will combine its IX architecture with Nortel Network's OpenIP software for network device design.

All of this, say observers, puts Intel into the major areas of Internet-related technology important to driving and sustaining its business. Backing up the strategy will be Andy Grove, who will deliver a keynote likely focusing on the company's Internet direction. The premise to be that if the PC was the center of the universe a decade ago, the Internet has now taken its place.

Network World Fusion Managing Editor Sandra Gittlen contributed to this story.