6WIND, the gold standard for software-defined networks, today announced the
availability of 6WINDGate Cloud Edition, an extension to its software product
line that provides industry-leading cost/performance for data center network
appliances. Building on the success of its Mobile Edition software, already
deployed in two-thirds of LTE networks worldwide, 6WIND has developed the Cloud
Edition version to apply its proven, unique technology to address critical
performance and scalability challenges faced by cloud infrastructure
providers.
The 6WINDGate Cloud Edition product includes an integrated suite of optimized
networking protocols matched to the specific requirements of network appliances.
These include protocol termination, QoS, routing, switching, security, tunneling
and VPN functions. Cloud-focused services provided within 6WINDGate Cloud
Edition include virtualization with support for industry-standard
hypervisors.
“Because it addresses critical issues in network bandwidth, scalability and
Quality-of-Service, our 6WIND Mobile Edition software has been adopted by
multiple tier-1 telecom equipment manufacturers worldwide,” said Eric Carmès,
CEO of 6WIND. “The new 6WINDGate Cloud Edition product leverages the same
technology strengths to accelerate the deployment of high-performance,
cost-effective and flexible network appliance solutions. These include
Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs), firewalls, security gateways and
Intrusion Prevention systems.”
Facing on-going CAPEX pressures, data center operators are challenged to
migrate to commodity hardware platforms as quickly as possible, while continuing
to deliver increased performance to end-users. At the same time, OPEX
constraints require improvements in resource utilization, achieved through the
efficient management of Virtual Machines (VMs) and virtual appliances. With no
way to predict the future mix of applications or the growth in workloads, data
center networks must be architected for maximum flexibility and scalability,
leading to the adoption of Software-Defined Networks based on open
standards.
Suppliers of both physical and virtual network appliances for data centers
must deliver new cloud-optimized solutions that provide best-in-class
cost/performance, while also accelerating their development schedules so as to
be early to market in new product categories.
To optimize cost/performance for network appliances, 6WINDGate Cloud Edition
leverages a unique software architecture to deliver a 10x in networking
performance for existing applications, while implementing comprehensive support
for commodity processor platforms.
Full support for industry-standard hypervisors enables 6WINDGate to be
deployed in virtual network appliances, with no performance impact. Maximizing
appliance throughput enables a large number of VMs to be deployed on a single
platform, together with their respective applications.
Providing full scalability across processors, blades and racks, 6WINDGate
also avoids the complexity of instantiating multiple VMs as bandwidth
requirements increase, enabling data center operators to configure a single VM
on several physical blades.
“The rapid growth of mobile devices and the emerging class of
machine-to-machine applications will accelerate the adoption of software-defined
networking solutions and virtual appliances,” continued Carmès. “To support this
exciting future, we will continue to enhance 6WINDGate Cloud Edition through
improvements in resource utilization that can be achieved through more efficient
management of Virtual Machines and Virtual Networking Appliances.”
“Data center operators must meet aggressive OPEX and CAPEX objectives while
also architecting their networks for maximum scalability and optimum network
monetization,” said Simon Stanley, Analyst at Large for Heavy Reading. “At the
same time, they must deploy optimized solutions comprising both physical and
virtual network appliances, since both appliance types will co-exist for the
foreseeable future. The 6WINDGate Cloud Edition software, based on technology
proven in the mobile infrastructure market, provides an ideal balance of
features for addressing these critical cloud networking challenges.”
The 6WINDGate Cloud Edition software will be available in Q2 2012. For more
information please visit http://www.6wind.com.