Boom boxes

Your data center topology is starting to scare you. You've got firewalls connected to VPN termination devices connected to load balancers connected to intrusion-detection systems, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) offloaders, distributed denial-of-service appliances, caches - all sitting in front of your server farm and back-end data storage.

The downside of having so many appliances and servers chained together is obvious. It's hard to manage them, hard to troubleshoot them, hard to upgrade. Then there's the physical clutter of all those racks and appliances and cabling in your data center.

But a number of companies are attacking the problem with hardware-based megaboxes that aggregate multiple functions into a single high-performance unit.

Other vendors are taking the additional step of providing configuration and management features that let companies and service providers "virtualize" the network functions inside the data center.

For example, Inkra Networks is selling a data center switch that combines firewall, load balancing, SSL acceleration, Web acceleration and VPN in one ASIC-based appliance. Inkra co-founder Dave Roberts says Inkra has developed all of the modules from the ground up.

Taking a different approach, Crossbeam offers an appliance that comes preloaded with best-of-breed security products, such as firewall, VPN and intrusion detection, from leading vendors.

But Inkra goes beyond simply aggregating point products. It also is touting its ability to create virtual racks within a single, physical Virtual Service Switch. Each virtual rack can be configured, deployed, scaled, upgraded and partitioned on the fly.

Similarly, Nauticus Networks is developing a data center switch that does Web application switching, SSL-based authentication and encryption, plus load balancing. The Nauticus Application Switch also offers virtualization, so a single switch can be sliced into multiple virtual switches.

The benefit for companies and service providers is the ability to simplify data center management on the back end and to better serve customers and end users on the front end. For example, service provider Savvis Networks is installing an Inkra 4000 Virtual Service Switch. "We'll be getting rid of hundreds of rack-mounted devices and eliminate miles of cables when we move our customers over to the switch," says CEO Rob McCormick.

It will "make a huge difference in our operational expenses and the time to repair," he says.

For one of Savvis' customers, Telezoo.com, the move to a data center switch is expected to mean quicker turnaround time when Telezoo needs a load balancer, firewall or other piece of IP hardware.

"In the past, it used to take Savvis up to 14 days to purchase, install and configure a new piece of equipment for me," says Rojan Mohan, vice president of Telezoo's product development. "Very soon we'll be able to phone in the order for another firewall or load balancer or a configuration change, and have those services provisioned in a matter of minutes."