January 26, 2008
Platform, world-renown software company, uses AscenLink to significantly improve VPN environment
Taipei, Taiwan – January 26, 2008 - Xtera's IP division, leading supplier of total WAN solutions, has helped Platform Computing perfect its centralized data management and reduce the risk of VPN single-link failure with AscenLink. Data synchronization is made stable and timely by AscenLink's patented Tunnel Routing.
Platform Computing is a pioneer and the global leader in High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure software. The company delivers integrated software solutions that enable organizations to improve time-to-results and reduce computing costs. Many of the world’s largest companies rely on Platform for workload management and cluster and grid management.
Platform's data center is located in Beijing. Daily data synchronization takes place
between the data center and research and development centers such as Toronto and Xian via VPN. Prior to deploying AscenLink, Platform's network was not equipped with multiple link integration. Neither the VPN nor the centralized data management were able to perform to their maximum potential. And there were certain risks in network security; timeliness of data transmission, security of data, and VPN stability were issues to be addressed.
"We had challenges in some of Platform offices where we had a number of ISP connections but not all of them were reliable; therefore, when we heard about the Tunnel Routing technology from Xtera’s IP division, naturally we were excited. You can have several physical ISP links and group them into one logical tunnel link. At any given time one of the several physical links can go down, but the tunnel will still stay up’, said Ahmed Shariff, Director Information Technology, Platform Computing. After extensive evaluation, Platform has deployed AscenLink, the Intelligent WAN Load Balancer, in our offices. The result as expected, 'no downtime due to Internet link outage.'"
After deploying AscenLink, Platform's network environment was improved significantly. AscenLink's exclusive, patented Tunnel Routing solves the problem of VPN unreliability and instability; AscenLink has not only perfected the existing VPN, but also helped other network services deliver their best performance.
Tunnel Routing makes it possible to create VPN connections from the current VPN gateway over multiple WAN links, thereby aggregating multiple Internet links of the branch offices to make full use of each WAN link's bandwidth for improved speed of data transmission and data synchronization. Tunnel Routing is equipped with network health checks to monitor the status of each WAN link; when every link is normal, traffic is load balanced evenly among all available tunnels via load balance algorithms; upon the detection of a failed link, the traffic will be routed to a normal link. AscenLink's Bandwidth Traffic Management can allocate bandwidth for tunnel traffic and Internet traffic; when VPN and Internet traffic share a WAN link, tunnel and data synchronization traffic can be assigned sufficient bandwidth to ensure stability and accuracy for data synchronization.
After repeated testing, Platform's IT team determined that AscenLink can serve as a VPN gateway for multiple link load balancing, and nearly accomplishes having WAN perform as well as LAN. Data synchronization can be made fast and secure by AscenLink. Also, AscenLink's transparent network management mechanism enables drop-in deployment and requires no changes to the existing network configuration. It has been praised as the best price/performance network solution by customers. Moreover, AscenLink enables building VPN tunnels in dynamic IP network environment; therefore, by choosing AscenLink, Platform was able to achieve bandwidth expansion and network expansion with multiple ADSL links and reduce network costs.
About Platform Computing
Platform Computing is a pioneer and the global leader in High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure software. The company delivers integrated software solutions that enable organizations to improve time-to results and reduce computing costs. Many of the world’s largest companies rely on Platform for workload management and cluster and grid management. Platform has over 2,000 global customers and strategic relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat and SAS, along with the industry’s broadest support for HPC applications. Building on 15 years of market leadership, Platform continues to define the HPC market.
Visit www.platform.com.
About Xtera Communications
Xtera Communications specializes in network infrastructure that delivers the highest capacity, reach and density. Our long-haul, Submarine, Metro and WAN technologies together with our deployment expertise drive customer success and long term value.
Xtera offers an extensive portfolio of Optical Transport solutions for long-haul, regional, metropolitan and sub-sea networks, and WAN Traffic Management solutions for both enterprise and telecom companies.
With deployments in four continents, Xtera’s Optical Transport portfolio helps service providers worldwide reach new markets via new deployments, and extends the life of their existing network assets with cost-effective upgrades. Xtera's innovative Traffic Management solutions offer customers the best price/performance in network optimization.
Xtera delivers compelling advantage to its customers by maximizing network capacity, reach and value.
For more information, please visit www.xtera.com