Cisco takes aim at surging XML, RFID traffic

With a multi-product launch expected this week, Cisco will attempt to address two growing areas of concern for network architects: managing the expected explosion of XML and RFID traffic.

Cisco is expected to launch a blade for the Catalyst 6500 switch that will parse XML messages quickly, verify XML signatures and ensure the integrity of Web service traffic flows without bogging down the network. A branch-office appliance with similar technology is also on tap.

The company also is expected to tackle RFID traffic with new hardware and software that manages and coordinates RFID data and the scanning devices that collect the data at the network edge.

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With a multi-product launch expected this week, Cisco will attempt to address two growing areas of concern for network architects: managing the expected explosion of XML and RFID traffic.

Cisco is expected to launch a blade for the Catalyst 6500 switch that will parse XML messages quickly, verify XML signatures and ensure the integrity of Web service traffic flows without bogging down the network. A branch-office appliance with similar technology is also on tap.

The company also is expected to tackle RFID traffic with new hardware and software that manages and coordinates RFID data and the scanning devices that collect the data at the network edge.

The new gear is expected to launch at Cisco's customer event, Networkers 2005, in Las Vegas, sources familiar with the product plans say. Cisco did not comment on the upcoming announcement.

Cisco's push into XML-technology is led by its newly formed Application Oriented Networking (AON) group, which some analysts say could be the next $1 billion advanced technology for Cisco.

"AON is one of Cisco's most significant announcements in a while," says Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with The Yankee Group. "This is the answer to the question that [Cisco] has been struggling to answer for customers - why the network matters."

The XML-aware gear will take load balancing a step beyond Layer 4-7 application switching, Kerravala says.

"A normal load balancer can look at a packet and understand it's a SAP packet and send it to a certain server, and that's it," he says. "This technology, for example, could look further inside" to see the packet as part of a product order - with such detail as what customer the order is from, the size of the order and any other data that can be included in an XML-based message.

In addition to routing XML messages, the technology also verifies XML data integrity and translates between different applications that speak different XML schema.

The AON technology also integrates pieces of middleware code into the hardware. At SAP's Sapphire Conference last month, an AON appliance was demonstrated running portions of SAP's NetWeaver middleware software. It is expected that Cisco will announce more than a dozen additional XML and middleware application partners next week, including IBM and Tibco, sources say.

"For the first time, Cisco can actually be correct to say that SAP" - or any other applications from AON partners - "runs better on their network equipment," Kerravala says.

Sources familiar with the product launch say the Catalyst 6500 AON blade will include technology from Tarari, a maker of chips that accelerate and secure XML message traffic. The technology is used in XML acceleration gear from start-up Reactivity.

Cisco's dive into the XML and application acceleration market was much anticipated, since Cisco executives talked up the technology at its December 2004 analyst conference. But Cisco joins a crowded field of former start-ups that now have established products and long lists of customers running XML acceleration gear, such as DataPower, Reactivity and Sarvega.

"Obviously, Cisco is a big company, and that can be an issue for us to compete against them," says Eugene Kuznetsov, CTO and founder of DataPower, which makes appliances and chips that accelerate and secure XML Web services traffic. "But this technology is a huge departure for Cisco."

Kuznetsov says DataPower gear runs along side routing and switching gear from Cisco in the data centers of such firms as J.P Morgan Chase and Wachovia. "Getting the attention of large customers won't be hard," for Cisco as it sells its XML gear, Kuznetsov, adds. "But DataPower has been running for two or three years in some of these types of accounts," he says. "But customers will see that [Cisco] is new to this."