Best described as a Mobile Broadband Hotspot, the MiFi acts as an 802.11 (WiFi) access point for up to five devices, which it then connects to the Internet via a mobile data connection – the MiFi has a SIM card tucked away in the battery compartment. In our trials, the device lasts up to 4 hours on a single charge, which is reasonably impressive for an access point. It is small and light (it tucks easily into a pocket in a jacket or a bag). Switch on, then fire up your laptop/iPod Touch/WiFi device of choice and surf the net anywhere up to 10 metres away from where the MiFi has been put down.

The MiFi supports a reasonable selection of 802.11 security features, to limit its use to selected devices, where that is a requirement. It also supports a MicroSD card (which can be up to 16GB), enabling local file sharing via a web interface. A very nice additional feature that boosts its usefulness on the road. The connection speeds (via the mobile network ) are up to 5.7 Mbps on the uplink and 7.2 Mbps on the downlink, which puts it firmly in the broadband space, with very attractive upload speeds too.

Initially the MiFi is available from Vodafone in Germany, Romania and Spain. The device seems a good fit for:

• Mobile teams – enabling collaboration and share data access.
• Road warriors with more than one device requiring mobile data access.
• Small group meetings in venues without WiFi.
• Telemetry/mobile monitoring with WiFi enabled sensors.
• Backup connectivity for small offices that are WiFi/DSL based.

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“The pain of WAN communications continues to increase as organizations become more dispersed globally, and remote workers increase in number,” said Efi Gatmor, Chief Technical Officer of Expand. “At Expand, our goal is to solve that pain wherever it may be, with technology that has the capacity to be virtually everywhere.”

Recently I had a discussion with Michael Cucchi, Sr. Director of Product Marketing for Expand. Not only have they been adding customers, but they have also added an ROI Calculator to their site (ROI calculator here). It is a web-based version of a more complex tool they use to help customers calculate the savings reaped from making more efficient use of wide area network bandwidth.

The Expand solutions enable network managers to trade CAPEX (capital costs in the form of purchasing WAN optimization boxes) against OPEX (spending less money each month on bandwidth bill from operating the network). WAN optimization has often been viewed as a trade off against bandwidth, but there are other benefits too. With Ethernet WAN services providing cheaper connectivity, it is increasingly obvious that bandwidth isn’t the only issue that affects network and application performance.

While network costs are going down, Michael pointed out that satellite bandwidth costs aren’t on the same price curve. Ethernet WAN services still have a relatively small reach, when you think about them in the context of a global business, or one with many remote sites. Traffic patterns on the network are shifting too. As well as “recreational” peer to peer traffic (read: music and video file sharing), there are a growing number of other IP applications that have peer to peer traffic patterns, for example VoIP and instant messaging. WAN optimization tools like Expand’s are looking to control traffic, as well as providing acceleration. Priority packets can be sent ahead of lower priority ones, boosting performance, and that is before any application-specific algorithms are used to reduce or accelerate the applications.

In all of this, the latency challenge remains – the speed of light isn’t changing, and that is a fundamental hard limit of the time it takes traffic to get from a data centre to a remote office. Applications are dependent on round trip time, and this is another area where WAN optimization can help. Long round trip times, due to high latency, make applications sluggish. That isn’t the only problem, because of the way that TCP works (using acknowledgement packets and sliding transmission windows), that latency can also limit the maximum bandwidth that an application can make use of. It isn’t unusual to see a high bandwidth link under used, because of high latency between a client and the server.

Digging into the Expand offering a little more, they have an interesting licensing model. Products are licensed by upstream bandwidth, that saves money if you are using large amounts of DSL, where the upstream bandwidth is more restricted. Something to bear in mind when costing out solutions. They are also doing a little bit of surfing on the virtualization wave, by providing a solution that can run inside a Virtual Machine. In general their offering seems to reach further than many of their competitors, since they have a server and desktop client. This gives more granular control, by user and application, and also reduces the amount of network hardware, where that is an issue.

The general trend towards desktop virtalization (eg VDI and see the post on VMWare), which is a server based paradigm with servers pulled back from branch into the data centre, means that network performance will become even more critical than it already is. Expand support a broad range of remote desktop protocols, supporting Sun, Citrix, HP and Microsoft solutions (and the open VNC offering).

One issue with adding additional hardware, such as WAN optimization boxes, into the network is potential negative impacts on reliability on performance for non-accelerated traffic. Expand are very conscious of this, and aim to ensure that no packet is on box for more than a 1ms and employ VRRP/HSRP redundancy protocols to deal with failure.

Expand is very strong in Satellite based networks, as well as the obvious applications in server-based computing mentioned earlier. However, businesses with large amounts of mobile traffic might want to investigate their solutions too, since the challenges are quite similar.

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NetBenefit are part of the publicly listed Group NBT plc (LSE:NBT) and have a broad customer base. They first came to my attention for their domain registration services, but also offer managed hosting and co-location. They have started to provide virtualization services, based on VMWare technology, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that later this year.

It is almost impossible to have a conversation about hosting with out ‘the green issue’ coming up these days. Kristel and Mark confirmed that they are frequently asked questions about their policy and how they source power. Their latest data centre uses renewable resources, something that is becoming a theme for many. It seems a reasonable question to ask of a supplier, as environmental policies start to propagate up the supply chain. If you aren’t being asked questions about your energy usage yet, then expect to be soon.

The majority of customers are building services on Apache with mySQL (now part of Sun’s empire), and hybrid set ups are very common – where users have their own data centre, together with some servers in a hosting provider’s facilities. This set up provides the best of both worlds, keeping key applications in-house and on-net, while putting Internet bandwidth-hungry apps off-site. Interestingly, Mark noted that Web 2.0 adaption has resulted in growing bandwidth requirements, due to richer content and more interactivity – something to be aware of as you adopt the technologies.

NetBenefit partner with Panther Express to provide their content delivery network service (See NetBenefit CDN), a solution that has worked to great effect for The National Archives, supporting well over a million downloads over the course of four days. “CDNs aren’t just about cutting costs,” said Mark, “they are about better user experience, performance and moving the content closer to the customer.”

Many hosting providers are challenged to provide CDNs, due to the need for a large number of geographically dispersed hosting locations, so partnering with a CDN player is a smart move. It is a good complement to traditional hosting, and something to think about if you have very high traffic volumes to a global audience.

NetBenefit, like many in their space, see Amazon S3 and Google as a big competitive threat, but are quick to point our their advantages in customer support and pre-sales consultancy. They don’t compete at the lower end of the market (Group NBT has the Easily brand to cover that space). They seek to differentiate themselves by using quality equipment (they use Dell hardware), and pride themselves on their highly experienced staff.

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• Acquired on-line storage company Jungle Disk.
• Acquired specialist hoster Slicehost. (see Rich Miller’s post)
• Struck a CDN Deal with Limelight Networks (detail at CloudPundit)
• And launched a cloud strategy with Cloud Sites, Cloud Files and Cloud Servers.

I think they’ve rather swallowed this cloud computing thing, and swept in talent from the space. This week’s ecommerce expo in London gave me the chance to catch up with Fabio Torlini, Marketing Director of Rackspace.

We had a very feet-on-the-ground discussion around cloud computing. Fabio agreed that cloud wasn’t the future for everyone, but that it made sense for some. Rackspace sits very much at the premium end of the market, catering to mission critical needs. This has kept them clear of the commoditization of hosting, letting them invest in quality support and adopt a packaged approach to meeting customers’ needs.

I know from my time in the Valley that many a start up owes its success to Rackspace offerings, keeping servers going in all Internet weather. Cloud services haven’t had a great reputation, with some big players suffering a number of big outages. Fabio sees cloud services as a lower-SLA form of service. I’m not sure that I totally agree – cloud brings with it a very different philosophical approach than the one used to build web-applications on dedicated services. But there is a good argument for using cloud-based services for applications with elastic capacity demands and less stringent availability requirements.

Hosted and cloud services alike are a good way of moving spending from CAPEX to OPEX, smoothing big capital expenditures into recurring operational costs. That makes even more sense in times like today, when budgets are tight. It is also a more success-based model, since you buy more services as and when you have the business growth to justify them. No point being stuck with a huge, out of date building and servers for a business that didn’t hit its growth targets.

Another advantage of moving applications into a hosted environment, or for that matter a cloud, is gaining the economies of scale that a company like Rackspace have. Very few businesses would be able to afford to build their own state of the art data centre to match the recently opened facility in Slough. Rackspace understand dealing with customers directly, and also working with partners. According to Fabio, they have a strong channel model, with about half of their business being indirect.

Competition in the space is intense. When the likes of Amazon (with their S3 offering now out of beta) and Google appear in the competitive landscape, it is time for some strategic thinking and action. Even more so when Microsoft decide that they want to play in the cloud too. While many providers at ecommerce expo were holding their heads in their hands, Rackspace seem to be keeping their head above the clouds (don’t groan!). Their very high service levels, and the addition of some leading-edge cloud-based offerings, keep them at the top of the game.

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Talking earlier this month with Bill Beverley, Security Manager at F5 Networks, F5′s focus is clear: “deploying applications is really the central role of IT”. That’s certainly part of it. Keeping them up and running is too, and that has been bread and butter business for F5, delivering kit to put in front of servers to deal with the peaks in capacity and inevitable server failures.

Load balancing provides availability, but acceleration and optimization are also key in today’s infrastructures. That has made WAN optimization a hot area, especially now that bandwidth prices are no longer falling rapidly. Bill talked about how F5 are adding extra layers of security for web applications, something that is big in PCI and compliance driven environments. F5 see their solutions as complementary to the network firewalls, with the firewall dealing with the high-load, low-intelligence packet filtering. As Bill was keen to point out, “if you have a really efficient smaller piece of kit doing that job, then we can deal with traffic in an effective and more intelligent way.”

F5 boxes terminate the TCP connection and then regenerate it out of the other side. Since the devices have application-level visibility into the application streams, this is the perfect place to apply application acceleration and application security magic. However, this isn’t going to be a clean battle. The traditional firewall players like Cisco, Juniper Networks and Checkpoint, are keen for a piece of the action too.

A battle is brewing between the folks coming from the application towards the network, and the network folks heading up the stack to optimize applications. On the application side, F5 might be the baby gorilla, but there are a number of chimps ready to fight it out with them. Database security has seen specialist players like Secerno emerge. In talking to Bill about SQL security, his comment was “I think you will see consolidation in that area.” I wouldn’t take that as a statement that F5 is feeling acquisitive (although they have been), but rather that smaller players will get swept up or washed away in the coming quarters.

Hosting and data centres are becoming more and more sophisticated environments, as you can see from the diagram. Layers have been added to the network to provide security, then availability, and now application acceleration. Those layers are spreading in their functionality too, with SSL VPN being added to the security layer, and storage virtualization added into availability. The latter will help many IT managers to clear up the NAS(ty) mess on the network, by balancing across multiple NAS devices, and migrating data at rest to slower storage devices.

F5 solutions are purchased as a mixture of sticking plaster remedies and strategic design, where acceleration and availability are part of the fundamental architecture, rather than an add on when capacity gets exceeded. F5 have some interesting developments coming down the line in the virtualization space. Because they see the application performance, then can provide feedback into VMotion / ESX running on the servers, to tell it to provision extra servers or deprovision them. The integration works through SNMP and SYSLOG, so could potentially be open to other vendor combinations too. Certainly lots for F5′s channel partners to apply their expertise to.

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David Kelly - Meru Networks

Meru have differentiated themselves by focussing on large, high-density WiFi deployments. Their technology reduces the issues of PCs handing off from one access point to another. You can argue the benefits of that for data, after all, how often do you walk around whilst surfing with your PC? But for Voice over WiFi it become more essential. Even when PCs are static, there are benefits in balancing load across different access points.

So, why are Meru both unheard of and much talked about? The answer lies in their users base, which tends to be formed from people who are experienced WiFi users. The majority of people I encounter who are into their ‘second phase’ of deployment are aware of Meru and considering them. This makes sense when you think about it: For a small scale deployment, there are a large range of vendors who can provide a working solution. When it comes to scaling, it is a completely different matter.

Meru have a big push on 802.11n technology. 802.11n has been spinning around the standards bodies for far too long, but will hopefully emerge, fully ratified, this year. The general view, including that of Meru Networks, is that any changes to the standard between now and then will be addressable via a software upgrade.

I’d always viewed 802.11n as a consumer technology, because that is where the bulk of the noise about it has been :- extending WiFi range in the home, dealing with interference etc… However the technology is just as applicable in the Enterprise, and this is where the Meru folks are pushing it.

By deploying access points delivering standard 802.11b/g, which can be converted to n, you get a degree of future proofing. The Meru solution is nice in that you can use b, g or n and still deliver the appropriate speed to users (it isn’t dragged down by the lowest common denominator).

Going back to Gartner again, they position Meru as a 4th generation, single cell architecture, with the intelligence in the access point. This takes away the drop off during access point hand over, and allows the layering of networks (read Gartner’s full piece here).  

Meru’s David Kelly was keen to stress their push into the UK and Europe. The company has a strong customer base in the US, including education (where user mobility is exceptionally high), health care and government. They are now repeating that success over here.

“Unleash the users and let them go,” says David. And why not? The traditional security concerns about WiFi are receding, with enhanced encryption and dedicated security capabilities such as Meru’s “AirShield 2.0″ (I’m not making that name up! read for yourself).

Meru use air time fairness to share bandwidth between different users, protecting VoFi (voice over WiFi) calls, and controlling would-be bandwidth hogs. Applications also include retail and distribution, as more and more data terminals have WiFi capability built in. If you are looking to refresh your WiFi deployment, or going straight to large scale WiFi use, Meru Networks is definitely worth checking out.

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Clouds in the Setting Sun

Cloud computing blogs are popping up all over (James Urquhart’s “The Wisdom of Clouds” being a personal favorite - check out his updated “Cloud Computing Bill of Rights“). But what exactly is cloud computing?

Cue “Cloud Computing Defined” on Mashable. The post went up before the weekend, its the conversation in the comments I’ve been watching. Cloud Computing is somewhat blackbox-like for those trapped outside. All the more reason for a good definition, and a good understanding of you might be dragging your business into (or at least the IT infrastructure).

Starting for what it isn’t, Mark Hopkin, on the Mashable blog, quotes Mike Elgan (the names are dropping left, right and center(re) ):

“Cloud computing” has been used to mean grid computing, utility computing, software as a service, Internet-based applications, autonomic computing, peer-to-peer computing and remote processing. When most people use the term, they may have one of these ideas in mind, but the listener might be thinking about something else.

Or to put it another way, it is the marketing umbrella of the day (Kool-Aid if you must). OK, so what should we be looking out for in cloud then? In the 90′s, in my consulting engineering days, we would draw grandiose architecture diagrams. In the middle would be clouds.

The clouds represented the ‘something magic happens in here… will figure out how later’. And for me, that is part of the essence of cloud computing. It takes a boat load of complexity that deals with storage, process distribution and many other things too hard and dull to think about and puts them in a neat box. As a user (in the sense of programmer, as well as end-user), you simply don’t have to worry about what happens in the middle. It just happens, and it is 24×7. I like Doug Klein’s comment:

In the networking cloud bad things happen all the time. Routers die, packets get dropped, loops occur. What has evolved over the decades, however, is a sophisticated and mature set of recovery tools; applications, protocols, processes all designed to detect, work around, patch and recover from failures. For cloud computing to realize its full potential we have to go through the same learning curve. It’s not impossible but it is certainly an order of magnitude more complicated give the much more varied nature of the situation. 

Mark harks back to those early networking days (with a quick name check for MCI nee Worldcom). The fact is, from a technology standpoint it might be tricky to put a finger on exactly what cloud computing is, other than a moving feast, but from a business one it is this: The next generation of IT outsourcing, staring us right in the face.

A little addendum… Even the register is on the case: “Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty“.

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Last year Gartner put IT on a par with the airline industry for CO2 footprint (“Green IT: Why it matters” ZDNet). Environmental issues, driven by the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda, are making people to think hard about that power use. But using less energy also saves money, and that is good business sense as much as environmental sensitivity.

Energy is a big ticket item for IT. Cooling uses as much, or more, power as servers themselves, which is creating a spiraling demand. Virtualization has got a new lease of life, speaking a new coat of green paint. It reduces the number of servers and their power usage. VMWare’s Rob Smoot talked though server virtualisation, and also the benefits of virtualization for the desktop. Thin clients reduce power and extend desktop machines life. Sun was ahead of the times after all.

Robb Boyd quotes Doug Gourlay on the history of constraints: first we were space constrained, then cooling constrained and now we are power constrained. Rob Aldrich - Cisco’s Mr Green – focussed on efficiency and sustainability, putting ‘green’ to one side as a politically loaded term. A good point, and a neat angle to follow.

The number of apps and the amount of data will continue to grow (The Exploding Digital Universe). The slight curve ball is where cloud computing plays into this. However, that moves the problem, rather than fixes it. The fact is, it is time to look carefully at IT power consumption, if you aren’t already.

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