XCompress offers economical compression

A few weeks ago I asked for tips about low-cost Web acceleration products. I got a note about XCompress from XCache Technologies.

XCompress runs on Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) and costs about $600 per server. The company claims the software, which compresses outgoing traffic, can cut your bandwidth needs by 30% or more and speed up network response times by about 75%.

The one drawback may be that XCompress only runs on IIS. But it’s really easy to install and no special configuration is needed, XCache execs say. If you don’t run IIS, you can still get an appliance to do your compression, the XCompress 2400 from XCache. That runs about $5,000 per unit.

The XCompress software is used by more than 300 customers, including Keynote Systems, Dow Jones Factiva and Target stores. The company recently announced that the Schwan Food Company has also begun using XCompress to improve the performance of its Web site and cut down on bandwidth needs.

Robert Boedigheimer, systems development specialist for Schwan, says the biggest hurdle to growing Schwan’s Web site has been the cost of bandwidth. With XCompress, Schwan cut its bandwidth requirements in half, Boedigheimer says.

Another affordable product from XCache is XTune. It’s a Web server-tuning product for IIS and goes for $89 for five licenses.

“We’ve got thousands who’ve used it to turn IIS from a mediocre general-purpose Web server to a powerhouse machine capable of handling much more traffic,” an XCache spokesman says.