Just as network gear evolved from routing all traffic indiscriminately to treating it differently based on the type of content, WAN optimization appliances have done the same to speed traffic according to location, system and user-level priorities.

In the application acceleration arena, Certeon stands out among vendors looking to take specialized traffic handling to new levels.

Certeon’s S-Series appliances provide application acceleration and security for HTTP- and HTTPS-based applications running over the WAN. Customers also have the option of using embedded “Application Acceleration Blueprints” that Certeon builds to optimize specific application environments, including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office and Oracle E-Business.

Its latest Blueprint, unveiled last week, is aimed at users of EMC’s Documentum Content Server and eRoom applications. The embedded software helps the S-Series appliances to understand the specific object and messaging semantics of EMC’s content management and collaboration applications and use this knowledge to improve responsiveness and minimize traffic and chatter over the WAN.

For example, the technology can identify Documentum and eRoom application objects contained within documents and Web traffic, perform object differencing to identify new information, and then only send the compressed differences over the network.

“The Blueprint is specifically designed to recognize semantics and objects from eRoom and Documentum. It deals with the fact that 98% of this traffic goes over Web protocols -- HTTP and HTTPS -- using what Documentum calls Webtop, which is their Web front end,” says Gareth Taube, vice president of marketing at Certeon. “Above Documentum and eRoom objects and files, there are all sorts of custom applications and compressed and obscured content that needs to be accelerated. Our Blueprint accelerates all of these.”

Users of these EMC applications can speed file downloads and page renderings by over 90% without replicating, synchronizing or modify the existing environment, Taube says.

Certeon worked directly with EMC Documentum, through its partner program, to develop the Blueprint. Having access to EMC content management specialists and technical resources helped Certeon refine the Blueprint, Taube says.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.