Array Networks this week unveiled a new high-end application delivery controller that’s built on a retooled architecture and is capable of higher performance and greater scalability than the previous generation of the vendor’s gear.

“The new architecture will allow us to deliver many products at varying performance levels in the future -- bigger or smaller. The first offering is 10+ Gbps, and based on market needs we can deliver much higher- or much lower-throughput products,” says Sunil Cherian, vice president of product marketing.

Aimed at enterprise and service providers, the APV6200 series is optimized for Web 2.0 applications, multimedia services and hosted cloud-centric applications, Cherian says. “Consolidated data centers, service providers, cutting-edge voice and video applications -- the things that drive a lot more bandwidth, throughput requirements and intensity in applications -- are very well suited for this,” he says.

There’s also a green angle: The 2U form factor APV6200 consumes no more than 330 watts, which is much less than many typical PCs consume, Cherian says. Customers are starting to seek out more energy-efficient gear and are specifying maximum power consumption thresholds in RFPs, for example, he says.

Array has dubbed its new 64-bit architecture SpeedCore, and a key attribute is its “lock free” nature, which enables linear scaling across multiple processors and cores, Cherian says. “By throwing more cores and more clock cycles, we can actually scale faster, and deliver faster and bigger systems,” he says. “We are now taking full advantage of the latest multiprocessor/multi-core technologies available.”

SpeedCore also improves the way the APV6200 series tackles packet processing, connection management and content inspection. “We can automatically pick the right approach to take based on the content, whether it’s Layer 2, Layer 4 or Layer 7,” Cherian says.

New fault-tolerant capabilities -- including the ability to run multiple instances in the same system and isolate application flows -- improve overall scalability and stability, he says.

The APV6200 series is available today.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.