Radware (Nasdaq: RDWR), a leading provider of Internet Traffic Management (ITM) solutions enabling continuous access to web sites, IP applications, and content, is pleased to announce its ongoing efforts toward creating a new network protocol that will facilitate and more efficiently manage traffic traversing the enterprise and the Internet. The protocol will allow network elements, including routers, load balancers, and Layer 4 switches, to closely communicate with servers, such as cache and Web servers.
Along with other Internet infrastructure companies, Radware has helped design the Network Element Control Protocol (NECP) to be an industry-based open standard that is also extensible, enabling it to keep up with the rapidly development pace of traffic management development. By working with other Infrastructure companies, Radware is helping to enable interoperability among the Layer 4 content-aware switches, caches and routers from diverse companies. Radware's partners in this venture are Alteon WebSystems, Foundry Networks, Network Appliance, Inc. and Novell, Inc.
NECP is designed to be a lightweight signaling protocol that provides an extensible method for network elements to learn about the condition of servers and their applications, so that traffic may more intelligently be routed to the proper servers.
NECP is designed to give traffic management devices, and compatible routers the ability to determine traffic conditions and availability of server applications in real-time. This way, packet forwarding devices will have the ability to determine beforehand whether a server has the necessary application, and bandwidth to service the request, or whether that server should be bypassed for a less congested or more appropriate server.
"NECP provides an efficient way for servers to relay status information to load balancers, like those in Radware's product line, which are responsible for forwarding packets to the servers," said Hooman Beheshti, chief technical officer for Radware. "It will provide the load balancer with a more detailed level of information, which will ease the burden on servers and speed traffic through the network," he said. NECP has been architected to work with any network servers, such as cache servers, web servers, origin servers, proxy servers and transparent proxy servers. In addition, NECP will also allow Layer 4 switches and load balancers to determine if content can be obtained through a cache, or should be directed to the origin server instead.
The NECP protocol is currently in draft form before the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Users can expect to see products that incorporate the NECP in early 2000. Click here to download the NECP protocol - www.netapp.com/necp
About Radware
Radware develops, manufacturers and markets products that manage and direct Internet traffic among network resources to enable continuous access to Web sites and services, applications and content based on the Internet protocol. Radware offers a broad range of Internet traffic management solutions to service providers, e-commerce businesses and corporate enterprises that require uninterrupted availability and optimal performance of IP-based applications that are critical to their business. Radware's Internet traffic management solutions enable its customers to manage their network infrastructure to bypass system failures and to scale their network infrastructure to accommodate increasing IP traffic. Radware's products improve the productivity of network infrastructure by distributing traffic within a network to optimize the use of available network resources. Radware's products can be deployed either as independent solutions to address specific application needs at a particular location within a network or as an end-to-end integrated solution to manage traffic throughout a network.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, general business conditions in the Internet traffic management industry, changes in demand for Internet traffic management products, the timing and amount or cancellation of orders and other risks detailed from time to time in Radware's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Radware's Form F-1.