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michael_cooney
Senior Editor

XML acceleration

Opinion
Dec 10, 20031 min
Enterprise ApplicationsProgramming Languages

* A look at an emerging piece of hardware, XML accelerator

This week’s Technology Update (https://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/2003/1208techupdate.html) takes a look at an emerging piece of hardware known as an XML accelerator.

In a nutshell, XML-aware network hardware or traffic acceleration devices work at or near wire speeds to process bulky XML messages which can seriously tax server processing power when done with application server software.

Our Technology Update author (sunil@sarvega.com) notes that XML acceleration appliances are generally deployed in a three-tier architecture in the data-center. They typically sit behind firewalls, between load balancers and application/Web servers.

And a bunch of vendors will be or already have hit the market with these tools. Sarvega, Conformative Systems, DataPower, Forum Systems, Reactivity and Westbridge among them. In addition, network stalwarts such as Cisco are eyeing XML acceleration developments. 

The growing use of XML and Web services is fueling development of these hardware appliances, experts say.