* The Reviewmeister checks out Peribit's new SR-100 bandwidth-boosting compression applicance
The Reviewmeister loves anything that can save me some WAN bandwidth, so this week we checked out Peribit’s new SR-100 bandwidth-boosting compression appliance.
The SR-100’s ability to quickly and thoroughly compress data at one end of a link and fluff it back up at the other (you buy Peribit devices in pairs and typically connect each one between a switch and a router) is impressive. We used FTP, server-based file copying of 1M-, 10M- and 50M-byte files, e-mail traffic and Web server accesses to test the SR-100’s performance. In each test, a pair of SR-100s typically increased WAN link bandwidth by a compression factor of 5.2, and it did so at wire speeds, introducing no delay.
By themselves, SR-100s are formidable tools for increasing the amount of data a WAN link carries. For the sake of scalability, however, an SR-100 can attach to the WAN through other Peribit devices, such as the SR-50, which the SR-100 uses as compression subprocessors. Moreover, Peribit claims an SR-100 can connect to up to 2,000 other Peribit devices across as many WAN links and can handle network traffic at rates up to 155M bit/sec. In our tests, we achieved aggregate throughput of 8.2M bit/sec through a T-1 link when we attached two SR-50 devices to each SR-100.
To our delight, the SR-100 has a path optimization feature. When we established parallel T-1 and SDSL links between sites, we could configure the SR-100s to shunt low-priority e-mail through the less expensive SDSL link and send other, business-critical traffic through the higher cost T-1 link. Moreover, because both links were compressed, we could extend each link’s lifespan before upgrading its bandwidth.
Compressing file transfers and Web pages is one thing, but we also wanted to test business application traffic. We replayed a Sniffer packet capture of SQL Server database transactions through a variety of WAN links to see how the SR-100 would fare. Not only did the SR-100 increase the effective WAN link bandwidth by a factor of 5.2, it also increased the database transaction rate.
After installing the SR-100 by simply cabling it inline between a switch and router, configuring it was straightforward with Peribit’s management console software. A quick start booklet accompanies the device, and online documentation is clear and comprehensive. The device even reverts automatically and smartly to pass-through mode (no compression) if it suffers an internal fault or power failure.
For the full report, go to https://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2004/071904peribit.html
