Tacit Networks' Ishared Appliances Demonstrate 357X WAN Data Transfer Improvements Plus Unparalleled Security/Reliability in Tolly Group Testing

Business Wire, Oct 25, 2005

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J. -- Ishared Performance More Than Doubles the Best WAN Optimizations Results Tested to Date by The Tolly Group; Demonstrates Advanced Security Schemes and the Ability to Survive WAN Outages

Tacit Networks, the leader in enterprise-wide remote office IT solutions, today announced at Storage Networking World, Fall 2005 that independent testing by The Tolly Group of Tacit Networks' Ishared Wide Area File Services (WAFS) and Branch Office IT services appliances has demonstrated application performance improvements over the wide area network (WAN) of up to 357 times faster than without Tacit Networks' solutions. This is double the WAN optimization performance previously seen on other devices tested by The Tolly Group. Additionally, this same testing verified that Tacit Networks' Ishared appliances can uniquely guard against WAN disruptions with no file or application data loss and with full synchronization once WAN connections are restored. The Tolly Group evaluation also confirmed that Tacit Networks' appliances offer full support for advanced security schemes such as Server Message Block (SMB) packet signing, which is provided as standard with Microsoft Windows technologies, raising the level of security without compromising performance when sending/receiving Common Internet File System (CIFS) data packets across the WAN. The testing also confirmed that Tacit Networks offers a comprehensive set of "Stackable Services" for the branch office, including file, email, print, web caching, networking and management services, and provides significant IT consolidation and reduction of equipment and costs at branch office sites.

In their extensive testing, Tolly Group engineers measured performance time and bandwidth savings when using Ishared Wide Area File and Exchange Services technologies to open and save 4 MB Microsoft Office files across the WAN as both file and email attachment data. These evaluations showed transfer times slashed from a high of 497 seconds to a low of just over one second, with open and save response time improvements ranging from 9X to 357X. Just as dramatically, bandwidth consumption was reduced by 84% to nearly 100%, lowering the need for costly WAN bandwidth through advanced techniques such as compression, latency reduction, and intelligent caching.

"Tacit Networks has set a new watermark for WAN optimization performance," said Kevin Tolly, President/CEO/Founder of the Tolly Group. "Until this testing, the best WAN optimization we've tested was half of the 357X response-time improvement that the Ishared devices proved they can deliver. And the added benefit of bandwidth reduction of at least 84% will make Ishared an easy decision for enterprise buyers."

In addition to performance testing, the Tolly Group evaluated the Ishared appliance's ability to achieve high levels of security via SMB compatibility and 128-bit SSL encryption. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating systems come standard with SMB signature capability, raising the level of security when sending/receiving data packets across the WAN and reducing the chance of "man-in-the-middle" attacks where attackers "sniff" packets and re-send them with malicious intent. The Tolly Group testing confirmed that Tacit Networks appliances offer full support of SMB signing without compromising the performance of its WAFS or Ishared Exchange solution. Tacit Networks is also the only Branch Office IT Services or WAN Optimization solution to offer a Windows-based solution that offers 100% compatibility with SMB signing.

Tolly Group engineers also ran a number of hands-on tests in the areas of WAN disruption and data reliability and concluded that:

--The Ishared appliance protected branch office users from data corruption that can occur when saving files during WAN disruptions;

--All cached files were maintained in the Ishared Remote Appliance during WAN outages so that these files were accessible to end users until the WAN connection was restored;

--All saved file data was automatically synchronized from the Ishared Remote Appliance with the datacenter store upon resumption of WAN service.

"When it comes to solving their branch office IT issues, the three areas that are hands-down the most critical to customers are data transfer performance, security and reliability," said Shirish Phatak, CTO of Tacit Networks. "Tacit Networks continues to merge the best WAN optimization, application acceleration and storage networking technologies to ensure that our customers' data is never compromised and always available at LAN-speeds from anywhere in the world. This Tolly Group testing proves that we have the best WAFS and Branch Office IT services solution on the market today to address customers' most important needs."

Full results on The Tolly Group testing of Tacit Networks' Ishared Appliances are available by contacting Tacit Networks directly at 908-757-9950, or by visiting www.tacitnetworks.com/tollygroupreport.>