XML Appliance From DataPower Targets Application Integration Market

Cambridge, Mass.-based DataPower took the wraps off its latest XML networking product today. The XI50 XML Integration Appliance, according to officials, will offer network administrators a drop-in solution that will XML-enable mainframes and wire-speed enterprise message buses to support enterprise application integration initiatives.

The announcement represents the latest effort by Data Power to build its presence in the XML-aware networking (XAN) space. XANs leverage the intelligence embedded in XML messages to optimize network performance by parsing and processing XML messages to accelerate, route or better monitor data traffic.

Integration appliances are drop-in network devices that can translate and transform disparate message formats, including binary, legacy and XML data types in order to better process data and share applications among disparate network elements. Companies are using these technologies to create XML capabilities in heterogeneous legacy networks. It is also making it possible to support application-oriented networking strategies (AON), which seek to integrate databases and processors that have not been effectively inter-connected in the past at the application layer.

The application integration market is currently pegged at between $100 and $300 billion a year according to the different analysts following this market. DataPower executives tell the Networking Pipeline that the AON subset of that market represents as much as 20 percent of the application integration space.

Officials contend that integration appliances, like the X150 from DataPower, can improve network performance by moving functions previously performed with general-purpose processors and software into the network fabric.Officials said they are seeing early interest in this technology among companies in the insurance, banking, defense, high-tech manufacturing and telecom sectors.