Swan Labs Swoops on Applications

Startup Swan Labs today launched new products for speeding up enterprise applications, less than two months after emerging from stealth with $15 million in Series A funding (see Swan Intros WAN Accelerator).

The NetCelera Enterprise Application Shaping (EAS) devices, which use technology acquired from ITWorx Inc. seven months ago, come in two sizes. The 2U, rack-mountable, T series is targeted at data centers, and the notebook-sized R series is aimed at branch offices.

The T series can push specific applications across the wide area network (WAN) at up to 622 Mbit/s and the R series is capable of 2 Mbit/s, according to Swan Labs execs. These figures are yet to be independently audited, although discussions are underway with testing firms, says Tom Tansy, Swan Labs' vice-president of marketing.

However, lack of independent testing has not prevented customers from deploying the technology. Cue Midwest Data Center, a company that provides off-site data storage for the telecom industry.

The Rock Port, Missouri-based firm has already deployed two T series boxes at sites in Kansas and Louisiana. Over the next month, Midwest Data Center is planning to deploy three more in Baltimore, Virginia, and South Carolina, according to Mike Goins, the company's IT director."It has been tremendous for database mirroring," he said. Midwest Data is also testing the T series boxes for hosting customers' enterprise applications, he added.

Goins describes the NetCelera range as "universally deployable" across his company's various locations, and even added an R Series box to the network a couple of weeks ago. But was it difficult working with a firm that was only founded in January?

"They are a new company, but the product is solid, and we are happy with it," said Goins.

So, who are the people behind Swan Labs? The company was founded by Andrew Foss, who helped develop the Pix firewall at Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and silicon valley entrepreneur Tom Tansy. Dan Kolkowitz, the man behind wireless content provider Mobilaria, was another co-founder.

Norwest Venture Partners and Doll Capital Management (DCM) partnered in the Series A investment round, while Benhamou Global Ventures and angel investors provided seed funding for the company.However, Swan Labs is not the only vendor playing in this space, and the NetCelera boxes will come up against the SR20 and SR50 devices from rival vendor Peribit Networks Inc., which has already carved a niche for itself in the application performance arena.

Stephen Elliot, senior analyst at IDC, said that the major hurdle for Swan Labs is building a sales channel. "The biggest challenge is making sure that they spend their $15 million on establishing a complete footprint and, more importantly, an indirect channel," he said.

"Peribit's biggest weapon is its indirect channel -- historically, this market has been driven by that," he added. Peribit ships product through several VAR patners.

Developing a broad product line, or footprint, is also important, according to Elliot, because it enables users to deploy a range of different-sized devices across their IT infrastructure. "You need multiple devices at different price points," he said.

There may also be some news coming out of Peribit in the next few weeks: A spokesman for the Santa Clara, California-based firm said that that company will be broadening its product line "imminently".James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum