Infrastructure briefs

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

• Peribit Networks is branching out from compression into traffic shaping at the same time that it is introducing a new appliance designed to save money and improve performance of branch-office WAN connections. The company, which makes the Sequence Reducer family of compression gear, last week upgraded its software to include bandwidth allocation for specific classes of traffic. The software, called SR System 3.0, can create up to 16 classes of traffic to which customers can assign up to 40 different applications simultaneously. In all, the Peribit boxes can recognize 256 different applications. The SR devices sit at both ends of WAN links on the LAN side of WAN routers and scan for repetitive patterns in the traffic. It then substitutes shorter patterns to replace those it recognizes, thereby sending fewer bits across the WAN. Peribit also is introducing a new device called the SR-20. Until now, the SR devices have been built for links between T-1 and T-3, but the SR-20 is for lines as small as 128K bit/sec and up to 2M bit/sec. The company says it was built for customers with relatively low-speed but expensive international lines and for those places that are difficult to upgrade to larger circuits. SR-20 costs between $2,900 and $20,000, depending on the speed of the WAN connection over which it presides. CMS starts at $5,000 and increases depending on how many devices it can manage.
  
  
• HP and Brocade last week said they would team to develop products that use HP's VersaStor virtualization technology to make it easier to manage storage-area networks. The companies have reached a development agreement to combine HP's VersaStor technology with switches from Brocade's SilkWorm product family. HP VersaStor in combination with the company's OpenView CASA (continuous access storage appliance) software and Brocade's switches would let network traffic be directed intelligently according to a user's needs, the companies say.

Read more about voip & convergence in Network World's VoIP & Convergence section.