ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Workspace IT / Desktop Hardware

Ex-Sun exec aims to redesign the network

By Peter Judge, ZDNet.co.uk, 7 March, 2002 19:07

Daily Newsletters

Sign up to ZDNet UK's daily newsletter.

Topics

Firewall, Nokia, Check Point, VPN, IDS, Nexsi, Load balancing, f5, alteon

NEWS
In the next few years, users will throw out all their specialist network-related boxes, and replace them with a single high powered "packet-cracker", according to John McFarlane, who used to run Sun's service provider business and, before that, the Solaris division, but is now chief executive of Nexsi Systems. While IT managers are consolidating their servers and storage into simplified pools, and their basic network equipment has become a commodity, one class of equipment is spreading out of control -- the specialised boxes that apply high level processing to network packets, filtering, sorting and encrypting them. "It is unmanageable," said McFarlane, listing point products including firewalls, VPN devices, load balancers and intrusion detection systems (IDSs) and secure sockets layer (SSL) accelerators. Suppliers in this area include Nokia, F5 and Checkpoint. "Below layer three, the network is done," he said, referring to TCP, the protocol that sits on top of layer two -- the Internet protocol -- and layer one, which is the cable. "It's effectively just copper wire. The layer two and three switches of companies like Cisco have become a commodity. The value-add is in layers four to seven, where the content and user information comes into play. Systems that crack packets and operate on data are what will enable end-to-end integration for e-business. Layers four to seven is the next great adventure in networking." Nexsi's Content Services System combines firewall, load balancer, VPN, security and other features, and performs all this on a 1 gigabit per second (gbps) network connection at wire speed (without slowing down the network) said McFarlane. A single system replaces multiple firewalls, offering individually set-up firewalls for each department, and costs $75,000 for a system that handles five domains. Enterprises who buy it can save $400,000 on hardware costs and $200,000 per year on operations, he said -- though at this stage, the company has no publicly announced customers. The three key factors of this new device category will be throughput, number of simultaneous sessions handled, and number of new sessions per second, while the processor has to operate on each packet. "We measure our performance in thousands of instructions per packet, per second," he said. "Others talk of packets per second." The way McFarlane tells it, even though the need for such a box is clear, there is no competition. Nexsi got its venture money two years ago, and spent $70m developing its product, before the dot-com bubble burst and funds started clamping down. It has built a chip with 48 processors on it, and mounted five of these on a blade, with large amounts of memory. The software links to existing products and dumps information to billing systems. Appliance companies like F5 also aim to reduce the number of appliances in the racks, by adding other functions -- firewalls gaining VPN functions for instance -- but they are hamstrung by the use of general purpose network processors, said McFarlane. Another option is for third parties to integrate point products into a rack, but that is just "a good idea for saving power and shelf space," he smirked. However, with money tight, the main competition is the status quo -- companies that decide to make only minimal changes to their network until the economic climate changes -- buying a few more point product appliances as required. It is natural to wonder if Nexsi is really aiming for the enterprise. Many networking products were designed during the dot-com boom for service providers, and are being repolished for enterprise use. Nexsi is not guilty of this, said McFarlane: "The initial product is getting interest from financial companies -- they look like service providers to us." Smaller products -- coming later this year -- will bring the price down to a level where more enterprises can use it, he said. The company has set up European operations, with offices in Amsterdam, London and Paris, and is looking for distributors. "We aim to have a local presence in each country," said Dominic Byrne, sales director for Northern Europe. "The product lends itself to consultancy services and we aim to work with partners." McFarlane joined Nexsi a year ago. The company's founders include vice president of engineering, Nazar Zaidi, who was the chief architect on Intel's Itanium iA32, and chief scientist Mark Bryers, who was also the launch chief executive of Web switch pioneer Alteon -- later bought by Nortel. "It's a convergence of network boffins," said McFarlane.
More enterprise IT news in ZDNet UK's Tech Update Channel.

For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Related stories

SuSE's firewall now supports VPN

Apple bucks a falling PC trend in UK and France

Apple takes top PC spot from HP

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

  • Login

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

JCB33

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

5 hours ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
Moley

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

8 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
greycynic

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

8 hours ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity
GrueMaster

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

9 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Frederick Wrigley

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

10 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
bdantas

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

11 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

11 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

11 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Moley

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

12 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
ramwellian

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

12 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?
BugStalker

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

12 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB
whs001

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

12 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Moley

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

13 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
45283

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

16 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA
Burn-IT

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

17 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs
ewallace

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

17 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions
fgvrg56

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

18 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?
Ben Woods

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

19 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
Marcus Karlsson

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

20 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule
apexwm

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

1 day ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Latest in Desktop Hardware

Apple bucks a falling PC trend in UK and France

Apple takes top PC spot from HP

Featured white papers

Tech breakthroughs to watch in 2012

ZDNet UK

Tech breakthroughs to watch in 2012

From invisibility cloaks to virtual atom smashing, from Cern to Nasa, this ZDNet UK guide presents the discoveries to watch in... Read more

10 must-read silicon.com Cheat Sheets

silicon.com

10 must-read silicon.com Cheat Sheets

This exclusive e-book covers 10 of the most important issues facing business and technology professionals today, from cloud computing to... Read more

The virtual presenter's handbook

Citrix Online

The virtual presenter's handbook

Web seminars or webinars can be interactive and engaging, just like having every person in the same room, and this white paper outlines how they can benefit your... Read more

Inside ZDNet UK

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

BlackBerry Bold 9790

BlackBerry Bold 9790

Case study: How cloud enables growth

Case study: How cloud enables growth

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault