NetScaler Raises the Bar in Application Acceleration With AppCompress Extreme

NetScaler, the global leader in accelerated application delivery systems, today announced the addition of AppCompress Extreme, an advanced new acceleration technology that can speed the performance of mission-critical business applications by as much as 44x, while reducing bandwidth consumption by more than 90 percent.(1) AppCompress Extreme goes far beyond traditional compression technologies by significantly reducing the amount of data being sent over the wire. As a result, application users experience dramatically faster response times, especially for time-intensive application tasks over a WAN (wide area network). In addition to AppCompress Extreme, NetScaler also unveiled several new additions to its award-winning NetScaler Application Delivery System that further extend its lead as the only product to accelerate the secure delivery of any application to any user in any location.

"Real-world testing by The Tolly Group demonstrates that NetScaler's new AppCompress Extreme technology can accelerate some of the most time-constraining tasks in Web-based applications by up to 44x," said Kevin Tolly, president and CEO of The Tolly Group, the networking industry's leading benchmarking and consulting services company. "This level of performance for dynamically generated application content will benefit enterprise IT by making more efficient use of low-bandwidth network links and improving user productivity."

About AppCompress Extreme

AppCompress Extreme dramatically speeds application delivery by eliminating the redundancy common in application content and sending only data that has changed since a user's original request. Instead of repeatedly sending an entire content-rich page or lengthy database report, for example, AppCompress Extreme intelligently sends only a small amount of data related to the specific fields or text that has changed since the previous request. If nothing has changed since the last request, user response time is even faster. In addition to improving performance for end users, this approach also dramatically reduces bandwidth consumption.

AppCompress Extreme works with any Web-based application, including custom-built applications as well as popular packaged solutions like Oracle, PeopleSoft and Seibel. It accelerates both HTTP and encrypted HTTPS traffic while remaining completely transparent to application users. As a result, AppCompress Extreme helps customers significantly lower the IT costs associated with data requests while speeding everyday business processes for end users.

Bi-Directional Compression of Large Data Files

In addition to AppCompress Extreme, NetScaler also announced an important update to its groundbreaking AppCompress MP (multi-protocol) technology. First introduced in 2004, AppCompress MP goes far beyond traditional HTTP compression technologies, giving NetScaler the only solution on the market capable of compressing data across any TCP-based protocol, including MAPI (email), FTP, CIFS (file transfer) and ICA (Citrix).

With the new version of AppCompress MP, NetScaler becomes the first integrated application delivery solution to support bi-directional data compression. This new capability accelerates data sent to application servers from client PCs as well as application content delivered to clients from backend servers. As a result, users can now experience faster performance when sending large email attachments, uploading files stored on HQ-based file servers and synchronizing offline updates to the online application.

More Than 75 Additional Feature Enhancements

In addition to its new acceleration capabilities, NetScaler also announced the addition of more than 75 new enhancements and capabilities to the NetScaler Application Delivery System, giving customers better application monitoring, security, manageability and reliability. Highlights of the new release include:

--  Advanced application monitoring
--  Rich application performance statistics
--  Powerful role-based administration enhancements
--  Flexible high availability (HA) options
--  Improved security for application access
--  Expanded application-layer SSL VPN connectivity
--  Streamlined system installation
--  New configuration wizards

"Once again, NetScaler has proven its technology leadership by introducing innovative new technologies that advance the state-of-the-art in accelerated application delivery," said Raj Kanaya, vice president of product strategy and alliances, NetScaler. "Our passion is to provide customers with the best possible access experience for both Web and non-Web applications. By speeding application performance, reducing bandwidth consumption and increasing end-to-end security, NetScaler is helping leading companies around the world to maximize their investments in enterprise applications and increase overall business efficiency."

Availability and Pricing

All new functionality described in this announcement will be available in early Q3 2005 as a software upgrade to the NetScaler Application Delivery System. AppCompress Extreme will be sold as an optional add-on module with pricing starting at $10,000.