Ramesh Barasia has a good way of explaining what Radware does. "Think of us as the traffic cops," he says — the directors of traffic on the Internet who make sure none of the cyber-highways get jammed with too many users and are shut down, and that also keep bad guys from breaking in.
Barasia is president of Radware Americas, the U.S.-based division of Radware, a provider of computer network application delivery and security systems. The company provides software and devices that ensure corporate networks always deliver "mission critical" applications — those functions that are critical to the success of a company — such as allowing a customer to make an online purchase, or to check their bank account. It also sells security systems to protect computer networks.
Radware (trading as RDWR on Nasdaq) is tapping into an increasing demand for application delivery control systems — those that can improve the performance of computer networks by performing the traffic cop function. Radware’s revenue rose 15 percent in 2009 to $109 million. Its stock reached a five-year high in April and is up 50 percent compared with six months ago. The company, based in Tel Aviv, has offices around the world, and employs 50 in Mahwah.
Barasia, 62, lived in Morris Plains for 23 years while working for AT&T in its various New Jersey offices and in Manhattan. Now based in Atlanta, his duties include supervising operations at the Mahwah offices.
Q. Radware is in the application delivery controller business. What exactly is application delivery control?
Picture that there are huge computers on one side, and on the other there are applications — mission critical applications. What are mission critical applications? If you are going into your bank account online, you want to make sure you get in when you want to, and you’re able to transfer the money or pay your bills.
Q. In other words, you want the computer systems to be up?
Right. You don’t want them to be down. It’s very important for the bank to make sure that for their customers, whether they go online in the middle of the night or any time, that the system application is working and that they have access to it and can do their transactions safely and securely. To make that happen, they have all kinds of servers and you access them from your computer. We sit right in the middle of this process. We are making sure the application you are looking for is available 100 percent of the time. If something has gone down, we will transfer you someplace else. We also make sure that performance-wise you don’t have to wait for a gazillion amount of time — say 10 seconds — because you will get frustrated and quit the session.
Q. Even just a few years ago, retail applications always seemed to be crashing — say on Black Friday, when demand was high. You don’t see that as much anymore. Is that because more companies are using these mission critical applications?
Yes. And it saves them a lot of money, because they want you to have a fast and efficient experience. The faster they take care of you, the sooner they can use those resources for other customers.
Q. What is the security part of what you do?
The security part is very important because there’s so much hacking going on. It’s not just viruses, but the data centers are being attacked from Korea, from China, from around the world. We have something called a threat analyzer. A customer says, "You know, I’m not being attacked." We say, "OK, let’s put this threat analyzer in your network." Nine out of 10 times, you will see that attacks are taking place. Some are very low level. Some have the potential to be a very serious threat. We have some very exciting products that help our customers.
Q. You just released a security product, APSolute Attack Prevention.
Yes — and this is where we provide a unique solution. There are several kinds of attacks. The hackers are constantly figuring out new ways of attacking you. What we are offering is one solution that can protect you from multiple types of attack. We’re seeing a lot of interest in this from the market already.
Q. To promote APSolute Attack Prevention, Radware has created an online computer game with prizes for the contestants. Who would be playing that? Techies?
Yes. Our customers are businesses. And our real customers inside those businesses are techies. They are the people who are managing the data centers.
Q. Have you played it much?
I never got into video games. Some people love them, but I am not a guy who is going to sit there and play a game.
Q. That’s probably how you were able to get a Ph.D.
I say I’m a fake doctor. I’m not a real doctor.
Q. You’re good at explaining what Radware does to non-techies. When you’re making pitches to customers, do you have to be able to sell to CEOs, or non-tech types?
Sometimes you have to tone down the jargon. You have to know your audience. Most of the time, our audience will be reasonably technical. I hate to use the word "geek," but you are dealing with geeks on both sides. So we have to be geeky and they have to be geeky. But sometimes, we have to go before the CEO and CFO, and then you have to put it at a more understandable level.