Certeon Speeds Up Virtual Apps

In an attempt to put an end to an IT managers reliance on proprietary WAN application acceleration appliances, startup Certeon has developed what it claims is the world’s first virtual appliance for speeding up applications.

The aCelera Virtual Appliance is a software package that takes much of the technology typically found in application acceleration hardware, and puts it into a VMware environment that’s capable of reducing application response time by 95 percent, according to the vendor.

The Virtual Appliance runs natively within a virtual machine infrastructure, allowing IT managers to download and deploy a virtualized acceleration environment across a WAN without the need for additional single-purpose hardware.

“What we found is most companies were witnessing hardware sprawl across all of their branches,” says Shawn Cooney, director of research for Certeon. “As the hardware appliances kept growing, most found that virtualization became necessary.”

The aCelera offering improves the performance of all remotely accessed applications and boosts the performance of mission critical applications like enterprise content management, Web-based collaboration, and product life cycle management, according to Cooney.The Virtual Appliances are also optimized to accelerate remote access to Microsoft Office; Microsoft Office SharePoint Server; EMC Documentum and eRoom; UGS Solid Edge; and other distributed applications.

“The real beauty of the aCelera Virtual Environment is that customers have witnessed a 95 percent reduction in response time,” adds Cooney. “They end up with a managed virtualized environment that’s integrated into the way they’re managing their corporate environment today.”

The aCelera software runs on any standard x86 system and aims to create a heterogeneous application acceleration solution for both virtual and physical environments.

Despite facing stiff competition in the WAN acceleration space from established vendors such as Riverbed, Expand Networks, and Juniper, Certeon’s flexibility is one of its key selling points, according to at least one analyst.

“Virtualization and consolidation are major catalysts in changing the way IT delivers services to the business,” says Bob Laliberte, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “This is especially true in remote or branch offices, as applications are consolidated back to a centralized data center and hosted on virtualized infrastructure.”The aCelera Virtual Environment is available now for VMware ESX or ESXi starting at $2,495, and will be made available on Microsoft Hyper-V in the fourth quarter at the same price. The company also announced that IT managers can buy a bundle package containing a Dell server, VMware ESX, and aCelera Virtual Environment through Certeon.

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