Two network and application performance management vendors have released systems that promise to give unprecedented control and performance to next-generation networked applications such as grid computing, virtualisation and Web 2.0 services.

Corvil recently launched version 4.0 of its application performance management suite, CorvilNet, which runs on standard Intel platforms running Linux, with hardware-assisted packet analysis.

Corvil chief executive Donal Byrne said that enterprises today are increasingly adopting networked applications that need ultra-low levels of latency and very little packet loss. He added that “inter-process latency is a big issue in grid computing, and next-generation teleconferencing applications like HP’s Halo and Cisco’s TelePresence require jitter to be kept under 30 milliseconds”.

Byrne said the firmware on the CorvilNet appliances made the system unique. New to this version is the firm’s Passive Network Quality Monitoring (PNQM) technology, which Corvil said gives network administrators unprecedented visibility of the end-to-end latency, jitter and loss of network traffic between pairs of CorvilNet appliances. The system can then present network managers with recommendations and policies for bandwidth and quality-of-service provisioning.

Byrne said the performance of Corvil’s systems is what led them to being selected by the London Stock Exchange to manage latency issues in its brand new trading system, TradElect. “In electronic trading systems, 1ms could mean $100,000 in profit to these traders,” he explained.

Meanwhile, UK-based DBAM Systems recently released its Exbander Precision (EP) appliance range, which combines data acceleration with load balancing, reporting, routing and traffic shaping.

Performance testing by Steve Broadhead of independent network evaluation firm Broadband Testing recorded data transfer acceleration results using EP of 10,000:1. Broadhead said this result far exceeded what is possible with current algorithms, adding that the technology had huge potential, especially in the area of mobile content delivery. “Regardless of the file type, from .tar archive/zip files, to the [already] very compressed MP3 and similar media file types, data transfer acceleration rates averaged around 10,000:1,” he said.

Broadhead pointed out that current techniques typically give between 3:1 and 100:1 compression, with the latter figure “being applied to basic alpha-numeric files largely designed to [achieve impressive results for marketing purposes]”.

Broadband Testing put its test results down to DBAM’s patent-pending algorithms. Broadhead added that although the WAN acceleration performance stood out, the DBAM platform also performed well in other areas, such as WAN management and security.

DBAM managing director Helen Slinger said the appliances come in a range of form factors, ranging from a branch office model, the EP60, that can handle 24 IP hosts and up to 3,072 IP flows, to the high-end EP60000 model, which can handle 224,000 IP hosts and 700,000 IP flows.