Move afoot to speed XML traffic

The growing use of XML and Web services is fueling development of hardware that promises to accelerate the processing of XML traffic and eventually become a staple of network architectures.

Start-up vendors are poised to introduce products, established vendors are receiving millions of dollars in additional funding, and network stalwarts such as Cisco are keeping a watchful eye on developments.

So-called XML-aware network hardware or traffic acceleration devices work at or near wire speeds to process bulky XML messages. This is an exercise that users find can eat up nearly 80% of server processing power when done with application server software.

A new generation of enterprise-class XML protocols for security, process workflow, reliability and management only promises to accentuate the problem.

"XML trades performance for extensibility," says Ted Schadler, principal analyst for software at Forrester Research. "The extensibility is huge because you can add mechanisms like security and encryption incrementally, but that means you have to parse the message to pull out the data. It's a huge amount of overhead."

Schadler says dedicated network hardware will become a requirement for successful XML and Web services adoption and eventually will help define a layer in networks committed to XML.

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The evolution is not surprising because many CPU-intensive tasks in the past have been moved from software to dedicated hardware.

Some vendors are rising to the XML challenge with general-purpose products and others have focused on specific tasks such as security or transformation. Early adopters say XML processing inevitably will move from application server software to hardware.

Earlier this month, Sarvega, which develops a hardware accelerator called XPE 2000, received an additional $10 million in venture funding. Other players such as DataPower - with founder and CTO Eugene Kuznetsov - are stocked with industry veterans from companies such as Cisco and Nortel. Other vendors include Forum Systems, Reactivity and Westbridge.

Also, start-ups such as Conformative Systems, which received $6.5 million in venture backing this month, are emerging from stealth mode and plan to introduce products next year. And nearly a half dozen other start-ups are currently flying under the radar, analysts say.

Intel spinoff Tarari this month is scheduled to release its first XML Content Processor, a silicon-based XML processing engine on a PCI card that plugs into servers, appliances or network devices.

Analysts say established hardware vendors such as Cisco, F5 Networks and Nortel will incorporate some type of acceleration technology over the coming years.

"We don't have to solve this problem today, but we are keeping an eye on it," says Mike Paratore, product line manager for content switches at Cisco.