Tech stalwarts buy into XML gear

Big vendors are taking notice of enterprise demand for dedicated hardware to handle the onslaught of XML traffic generated by services-based applications.

The latest to make a move is IBM, which last week paid an undisclosed sum - rumored to be more than $100 million - to acquire privately held DataPower. IBM's acquisition follows Intel's August purchase of Sarvega, which like DataPower, makes appliances for handling XML and Web services traffic.

Cisco also has turned its attention to more intelligent-application routing. The company in June announced its Application-Oriented Networking (AON) product line, which includes a module for the Catalyst 6500 switch that parses and secures XML and other message-based traffic. The Cisco gear incorporates technology from Intel-spinout Tarari, which makes XML-acceleration chipsets.

The market for XML-aware network gear took hold a few years ago, when users began to realize that processing bulky XML messages could eat nearly 80% of server processing power if it was done with traditional application server software. As more companies consider developing service-oriented architectures (SOA), IT executives are weighing the network implications of introducing XML-heavy application traffic, says Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst at ZapThink.

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Big vendors are taking notice of enterprise demand for dedicated hardware to handle the onslaught of XML traffic generated by services-based applications.

The latest to make a move is IBM, which last week paid an undisclosed sum - rumored to be more than $100 million - to acquire privately held DataPower. IBM's acquisition follows Intel's August purchase of Sarvega, which like DataPower, makes appliances for handling XML and Web services traffic.

Cisco also has turned its attention to more intelligent-application routing. The company in June announced its Application-Oriented Networking (AON) product line, which includes a module for the Catalyst 6500 switch that parses and secures XML and other message-based traffic. The Cisco gear incorporates technology from Intel-spinout Tarari, which makes XML-acceleration chipsets.

The market for XML-aware network gear took hold a few years ago, when users began to realize that processing bulky XML messages could eat nearly 80% of server processing power if it was done with traditional application server software. As more companies consider developing service-oriented architectures (SOA), IT executives are weighing the network implications of introducing XML-heavy application traffic, says Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst at ZapThink.

"A lot of the network operations and data center people are saying, 'OK, great, make this SOA decision, but don't impose a huge burden on this network that I have to protect.' They may be demanding performance solutions even before some of these SOA projects get off the ground," Schmelzer says.

DataPower is among a handful of start-ups that shaped the market for XML appliances. Others include Forum Systems, Reactivity, Sarvega and Westbridge. Newcomers include Solace Systems, which in April unveiled a message-routing product, and Xambala, which is working on content-aware processing technology.

IBM says DataPower's appliances will help its customers with their efforts to deploy SOAs. Big Blue plans to develop a family of SOA appliances based on the DataPower technology, which it's adding to its WebSphere software area, says Robert LeBlanc, IBM's general manager of WebSphere. DataPower's 70 employees will join IBM, and there are more hires on the horizon, LeBlanc says.

"If you look at all that SOA entails - there's security, there's management, there's process management," LeBlanc says. "All of the things that make up an SOA environment are candidates to be integrated on top of an appliance. We're going to look at all of those opportunities to extend the functionality that DataPower provides today."

IBM plans to develop new products, such as a blade version of DataPower's appliances, which today are 1U rack-mounted devices. DataPower's products include the XI50 Integration Device, which streamlines SOA infrastructures; the XA35 XML Accelerator, which offloads XML processing; and the XS40 XML Security Gateway, which helps provide message-level Web services security.

In the past IBM has focused on the software and professional services side of SOA, "and this announcement shows that hardware and network appliances play an equal role in making an SOA a reality," Schmelzer says. The acquisition puts pressure on other infrastructure platform vendors, such as BEA Systems and Oracle, to broaden their software- and services-centric SOA coverage, he says.