Redline has taken a different approach to accelerating the customer experience: The TX 2100 is the only product we tested with no caching capabilities whatsoever. It relies solely on its ability to keep open connections and keep the send queues on the server empty to provide enhanced performance for both the server and clients. This is a great idea, but our testing showed that while this method was effective in increasing the scalability of the Web server, it was not as effective as other technologies at increasing performance for clients.
One of the TX 2100's biggest drawbacks is its inability to alter images. Images represent the largest number of bytes in a typical Web page and often make little or no difference to the end user (think ads). It defeats the purpose of deploying an acceleration product if users click away from your page because of a long image download. Text compression is the only manipulation technique used by the TX 2100; all other gains are made thanks to its custom-designed TCP/IP stack, which is built specifically for handling HTTP traffic.
On the server side, the TX 2100 not only multiplexes TCP connections to the server but also load-balances HTTP requests over those connections. If the device becomes overwhelmed with requests, it can overflow those requests to the Web server. The ICX-75s and FineGround's Condenser offer similar features. On the client side, the TX 2100 emulates an HTTP 1.1 connection for HTTP 1.0 clients and prevents hard closes from the server for HTTP 1.1 clients, a method some servers use instead of honoring 1.1 and 1.0 keep-alive connections. This means less session setup on the client side and better performance.
Like the ICX-75s and Venturi, the TX 2100 is a zero-point-of-failure device, operating in much the same manner as the ICX-75s. Although the performance gains with the TX 2100 were not as impressive as those achieved with BoostWeb or Venturi, they were gains nonetheless. Our 92-KB image transfer stayed 92 KB, but instead of taking 458 seconds it took 297 seconds. Text compression matched that of the other products we tested, taking the 8-KB text down to 3 KB.
TX 2100, $9,995. Available: Now. Redline Networks, (408) 369-6420, 877-550-6420; fax (408) 558-7955. www.redlinenetworks.com
FineGround Networks FineGround Condenser
The Condenser is the only delta-based product we tested. It has limited OS support (Solaris and Linux only), but it will provide some outstanding enhancements to performance -- if you are willing to accept a few caveats and play by the rules. JavaScript must be active, and the target browser must be supported by the Condenser to see any performance gains. Microsoft IE and Netscape Navigator on Windows platforms are the only browsers specifically supported.
Visiting a Condenser-enabled Web site for the first time provides no benefit. Our testing results were a bit skewed by this. The Condenser relies heavily on caching technology, both its own and the browser's, and subsequent visits to the site reflected the natural improvement gained by all users to a site (browsers cache images, so users will get this benefit regardless).
The cool thing about delta technology is that on second and third visits the only transfers will be new images and -- here's the best part -- only the specific bytes that have changed. Determining what has changed is the role of the Condenser, which compares a base page (stored on the Condenser) with the page on the origin server. Our charts show the performance benefits gained on a second visit; the first visit resulted in times and sizes almost identical to the baseline results.
The bytes are returned, a small piece of JavaScript replaces the bytes in the cached document and -- voila! -- small, fast and efficient downloads. The benefits on secondary visits were astounding. Our 8-KB page had approximately 256 bytes of dynamically changing text. While the other products we tested reduced that total to 3 KB, the Condenser provided the same page with the dynamic text in a mere 1 KB. And while no benefit will be provided to browsers that do not support JavaScript, those browsers will still be provided with the original content.
The rule of thumb that all the products we tested subscribe to is: Don't break anything. Also, in testing with an unsupported browser -- Konqueror on Linux -- we found that all the products (except Venturi, which is a different technology) still followed this rule.
FineGround Condenser, starts at $50,000. Available: Now. FineGround Networks, (408) 376-0570; fax (408) 376-0592. www.fineground.com
Fourelle Systems Venturi
Venturi is an awesome compression and transport system, pushing transfer times and compression beyond those of any other product we tested. With transfer sizes of images averaging a mere 256 bytes, the Venturi could have taken the cake easily. Instead, it fell to last place because of its pricing and proprietary technology.
Our 458-second transfer turned into 2.4-second transfer, causing us to rerun the test multiple times to ensure that our Storm emulator was running and accurately simulating our 14.4-Kbps environment. It was; the Venturi is just that good at providing efficient transfers of data via its proprietary transport protocol.
The device requires that a client-side application be distributed to every client, making it well-suited for field deployments but offering no general purpose use for everyday browsers to your site. The client-side application acts like a proxy, and it can be turned on and off with a single click on the client side, providing a no-failure device. But we just couldn't stomach this requirement, especially when compared with Fourelle competitors that required no modifications to the user desktop.
Deployment and configuration is difficult because of the additional component, and the pricing can run from $25,000 to $195,000 depending on the number users supported. Certainly for limited corporate deployments this device will provide astounding performance, but as a general-purpose device, the Venturi won't be much help.
Venturi, $25,000 to $195,000. Available: Now. Fourelle Systems, (408) 565-9100, (800) 259-6973; fax (408) 565-9130. www.fourelle.com
Technology editor Lori MacVittie has been a software developer and a network administrator. Most recently, she was a member of the technical architecture team for a global transportation and logistics organization. Send your comments on this article to her at lmacvittie@nwc.com.
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