Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Vineyard Networks Upgrades Application Intelligence For OEMs, Service Providers

Vineyard Networks has announced the latest version of its application intelligence engine, which it sells to service providers as well as into the OEM security and network vendor markets. The Network Application Visibility Layer (NAVL) library now features thousands of applications, provides a custom application definition interface to add proprietary apps, and optimizes performance for standard multiprocessor hardware.

Application intelligence is fast becoming a critical component in both security and network
operations, with the proliferation of Web-based applications, social media, apps on mobile devices, and bandwidth-intensive apps such as voice and streaming video. Network layer-and protocol-based controls are no longer deemed sufficient as enterprises try to manage access by users and applications and bar potentially dangerous apps. Organizations need to manage network traffic based on application priority and deliver specific application services to customers.

Palo Alto Networks has been the early application intelligence leader in the security market. Its "next generation" firewalls, providing highly granular app definition combined with user identification and activity, have gained significant market share. Other security vendors have moved to follow suit, either developing their own app intelligence capability or acquiring it.

Vineyard is betting that there is a big OEM market, as most security and network vendors will want to license their technology rather than invest heavily in time, resources and cash to develop their own. They hope to be the application intelligence analog to Snort in the IDS market, says Jason Richards, Vineyard CEO.

He sees opportunities to sell NAVL to security appliance vendors, particularly UTM, which he says is showing the most current activity, as well as WAN optimization and application delivery controller companies. "A lot of companies have some element of [application intelligence] technology in their platform," he says, but not to the degree to meet the demand of customers for application visibility."

  • 1