Offered in 1U through 3U form factors and now supporting from 2 Mb/sec to 1 Gb/sec WAN capacities, the NX series appliances from Silver Peak Systems leverage network-level de-duplication (among other features) to provide traffic acceleration for WAN connected Enterprises. The appliances now range from the NX-2000 on the low end, offering a pair of 10/100/1000 ports; to the new top of the line NX-9000 featuring four 1 Gb/sec fiber ports and a pair of 10 Gig fiber ports with EtherChannel bonding.

The appliances are deployed in pairs (one at each site connected via WAN), though a different model of device can be deployed at each site requiring intercommunications (the core data center may require one of the higher level appliances, for example, while ROBOs may utilize a smaller appliance). WAN traffic is accelerated between the two devices via a number of methodologies, the most significant of which is network-level, disk-based de-duplication. In brief, the appliances on both end of the communication cache network-level communications that are sent and received over the WAN. As subsequent network communications are requested, the devices compare the information to the information residing in the cache (via fingerprinting methods designed to support the matching of arbitrary-length data), and if present, send to the remote appliance only a reference pointer to the stored information. The remote appliance then retrieves that cached information and forwards it on to the intended recipient just as if it had traveled the full length of the wire. The NX devices cache communications at the network layer (not just traffic payloads), enabling them to support any IP-based protocols, with targeted applications including remote replication/disaster recovery, central DB access, WAN-based backup, etc.

In addition to de-duplication, the NX devices also leverage QoS (per application), TCP-based protocol acceleration, and compression as further traffic acceleration techniques; and additionally employ adaptive Forward Error Correction and Packet Order Correction techniques in an attempt to reduce error-related data retransmissions.

As mentioned, the appliances--currently offered in six models, the lowest of which can be deployed in one of two configurations--range from 1U to 3U and size and WAN-side traffic capacity of 2 Mb/sec to 1Gb/sec. The lowest entry, the NX-2000, ships with a single or dual RAID protected 250 GB drives; while the new high end NX-9000 boasts 16 500 GB drives for a total raw capacity of 8 TB.

Other features of the platform include 128 bit AES encryption of both the data on disk and in transit over the WAN (WAN encryption is via IPSec or GRE tunnels); support for 1+1 or N+1 HA deployments with failover; and built-in GUI or CLI (console or SSH) based management. Also available from the vendor is the Global Management System (GMS) which provides centralized, GUI-based management and real-time monitoring tools for WAN-wide multiple NX appliance deployments.

Pricing for the NX series appliances ranges from $4,995 (NX-2000) to $259,995 for the new NX-9000. GMS pricing starts at $9,995. The NX-9000 is expected to be available in mid-August, 2008.

Visit the Silver Peak Systems Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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