Sometimes a little advanced thinking can save a world of time and effort in the end. That's the premise behind products from Anue Systems, an Austin-based company that provides test and measurement appliances to help customers replicate traffic to determine how the network will respond.

The company, whose name is loosely based on the Hawaiian word for rainbow and related to the light of optical networks, offers customers two flavors of its emulation devices: the high-end Hawaii (the larger of the islands); and the lower end Maui. The appliances sit between the two devices to be tested. For instance, if a network manager wanted to test how a voice application worked under certain conditions, the appliance would be placed between an IP PBX and an end-user IP phone. Or it could sit between servers to stress test an application under certain network delay and latency conditions.

Company executives say the product can help large enterprise customers troubleshoot network problems, as well as determine how various connection types will perform. With competition from companies including Empirix and PacketStorm, Anue helps large enterprise networks troubleshoot network performance problems. And when it competes against products such as Shunra Virtual Enterprise and Apposite's Linktropy, Anue co-founder Kevin Przybocki says Anue can also help validate how network applications will perform over wide-area connections before they are deployed.

"We can help find problems before they occur and reduce the risks of deployment," he says. "We like to think we are like taking a vitamin, rather than medicine, because we help networks stay healthy before they get sick."

Appliances range in pricing from $20,000 on the low end to $85,000, depending on the configuration.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.