5 Technologies To Watch

WAN OPTIMIZATION

Web-based applications, VoIP and video are all in demand. Customers are looking to centralize branch-office resources into the data center for improved management and security, and all of this needs to happen while keeping bandwidth costs in check. Those are just a few of the market trends expected to drive growth in the WAN optimization market in 2006, which is on track to hit more than $380 million this year, on its way to $610 million by 2009, according to research firm IDC.

When paired with application acceleration, the second side of the same coin, the market opportunity grows even bigger. VARs are poised to capitalize on this boom in the coming year, educating customers on the need to tie in the technologies with broader networking, remote application access, backup/disaster-recovery solutions and, in particular, VoIP solutions. “No one notices if e-mail is half-a-second slower, but a VoIP user certainly does,” said Richard Bryer, associate with IT Channel Group, a network integrator in Toronto. “There&'s less tolerance.”

With Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks throwing their hat into the ring last year via acquisitions, plus a bevy of startups and others already shifting focus toward the space, WAN optimization is poised for a competitive year, and solution providers will be at the center of the fray.
-- Jennifer Hagendorf Follett AJAX
Delivering applications via the Web has always been a tricky undertaking at best, but developers are now turning to AJAX programming to build rich Web-based applications.

AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML, is not a product or even a technology. It is a method of developing Web applications that leverages the XML HTTP request object found in browsers, which allows a browser to communicate with a Web server without the overhead of submitting forms or redrawing Web pages. The result is fast, near-desktop-speed applications that can use advanced interface elements found in traditional desktop applications.

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While AJAX is not new, all the pieces seem to be falling into place to spur the creation of a new generation of Web-based applications. Google&'s use of AJAX for its interactive mapping application may only be the start. Some even see the possibility that one day a browser-only system will take care of most users&' computing needs, including word processing. In the near term, AJAX could help swell the market for on-demand business applications such as those from Salesforce.com with the promise of increased performance and functionality.

“We co-developed an AJAX engine with Salesforce.com, and it is the hottest thing going,” said Eric Berridge, a founding principal at Bluewolf Group, New York, one of Salesforce.com&'s largest partners. “AJAX is what Bill Gates has feared for a long time. AJAX is real, and we are working with several brand-name customers to apply its power to replace the need for Microsoft Excel—or the entire Office Suite, for that matter.”
-- Frank J. Ohlhorst MULTICORE PROCESSORS
2006 promises to be a dual-core smorgasbord. Joining current dual-core server and desktop CPUs from Advanced Micro Devices and Intel early this year is Intel&'s new crop of low-power dual-core mobile chips.

Moreover, as chip makers engineer these processors to run faster, they are also improving efficiencies. AMD already touts lower-power chips and Intel will try to up the ante in the second half with new dual-core chips for servers and desktops based on the same technology it uses to deliver low-power CPUs for mobile PCs. Both have said they plan to phase out single-core processors and expect the bulk of processors sold by the end of the year to be dual-core.

The bottom line, said George Scheurer, a partner at solution provider Arete, Florence, Mass., is that the new processors can do a lot more for a lot less. “They are cheaper and more efficient,” he said. “That is the key to the whole thing.”

The data center is also a key consideration, where the ability to increase processing power without maxing out space, power consumption and heat is becoming more crucial.

But, don&'t get too comfortable with the dual-core notion. Intel and AMD expect to unveil the first x86 quad-cores by the end of the year. Sun Microsystems, of course, already offers a low-power, eight-core CPU for high-transaction apps.
-- Kristen Kenedy CONTINUOUS DATA PROTECTION
In a storage industry that thrives on three-letter acronyms, it&'s no surprise that those acronyms become the trends to watch.

In 2005, the buzz was all about ILM. In 2006, the letters to watch are C, D and P.

CDP, or continuous data protection, is a way of ensuring that data is as up to date as possible in case it needs to be restored after a system failure. This is achieved via a software or hardware appliance that backs up changes to data shortly after those changes are made.

CDP is not necessarily continuous, despite its name. Microsoft&'s Data Projection Manager software, for instance, backs up data changes at most once an hour, while CDP software from other vendors backs up those changes after a “significant” event such as the closure of a transaction.

The key trend driving CDP is the need to keep data highly available. Before CDP, that meant backing up or replicating data to disk arrays before archiving it to tape. CDP is the next step, ensuring that the data on those arrays can be accessed in the most up-to-date fashion.

While 2005 saw a lot of hype around CDP, 2006 will see $500 million companies adopting the technology, said Dan Carson, vice president of marketing and business development at Open Systems Solutions, based in Willow Grove, Pa. “There&'s a lot of [Sarbanes-Oxley] stuff that has to go in place in 2006,” he said. “Companies either need to add automated continuous protection, or do it manually. And nobody wants the liability of doing it manually.”

As data becomes highly available, thanks to CDP, the next step will be to make sure that it is encrypted. That may be a technology to watch in 2007, once someone figures out how to turn data encryption into a three-letter acronym. -- Joseph F. Kovar END-POINT COMPLIANCE
With the network perimeter largely secure, companies are turning inward to protect their local area networks from mobile workers returning to the office after a day in the wild.

Buoyed by big pushes from Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Microsoft and Symantec, end-point compliance products are set to drive significant sales for solution providers in 2006.

Last fall&'s wave of worms is also driving sales. While most companies&' perimeter defenses stopped the infection, many of the companies hit with the Zotob worm were infected by mobile workers who picked it up on the road and unleashed it when they returned to the office and accessed the LAN directly.

End-point compliance products, which are also known as network access control products, protect LANs by ensuring that all devices connecting to a network are running the appropriate security solutions, are configured correctly and possess up-to-date patches. While VARs have been evangelizing the technology for the past year, customers are now switching to buying mode.

M&S Technologies, for one, anticipates a “fantastic year” for end-point compliance solutions after months of demos in 2005, said Mark Miller, principal at the Dallas-based solution provider. Customers didn&'t buy in 2005 because they hadn&'t budgeted for the technology. “This year it&'s in everybody&'s budget,” he said.
-- Larry Hooper