Meet Net Demands
RND tests Cache Server Director to free Web bandwidth
By Gregory Dalton
ND Networks this week is introducing the test version of a proxy server management and
load-balancing system for organizations that use cache servers on their networks to help handle
Internet bandwidth demands. RND is scheduled to deliver its cache-server technology this year,
while major internetworking vendors are rushing to improve current products and provide
sophisticated solutions in the same market area.RND's Cache Server Director is a network router that intercepts users' requests for frequently visited Web pages and directs them to a server where those pages have been stored for faster access. Competitors such as Inktomi, with its Traffic Server product, are concentrating on selling their cache-server technology to Internet service providers. But RND is aiming first at enterprises that want to do their own storing and caching.
Paul Gotter, Unix administrator for Trimark Investment Management Corp. in Toronto, says he's looking forward to receiving the CSD beta to complete a network configuration being set up to provide Internet access to the mutual fund company's 1,000 employees in Toronto and in Calgary, Alberta.
"To reduce our outbound traffic, we would like to cache," so the company can spend less on bandwidth, Gotter says. "A lot of that traffic is the same thing over and over."
Trimark's configuration will include the Netscape Proxy Server and Squid, a public-domain load-balancing product. "RND's product will not cache all that much on its own," Gotter says. "It will distribute the traffic between the two." He considered a software solution but says, "We prefer to have a dedicated piece of hardware doing that rather than software."
While RND has a sophisticated product, it's running right into the headlights of internetworking giant Cisco Systems, says Ted Julian, an analyst at Forrester Research. Cisco's Local Director and Distributed Director lack robust capabilities right now, but "Cisco won't let that last for long," says Julian.
Once Cisco improves its products, startups such as RND will have a difficult time being more than just niche players. That's because Cisco is moving toward offering switches that can do load balancing and even caching.
"They're going to put all this stuff in a box," Julian says.
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