The Ipanema System is a platform that combines centralized software management and distributed hardware engines to provide automated WAN performance optimization, for Enterprises with distributed (WAN connected) offices, or Service Providers.

The central software is called the Ipanema Management Software Suite (IMSS), and at its core is ip|boss, which provides the management and configuration tools of the platform, allowing the administrator to define "Application Performance Objectives" which are then pushed out to the hardware components (the ip|engines, more below). In addition to policy definition and implementation, other capabilities of the central software include system configuration tools, error management, network usage and performance measurement data collection, alarm management, and report generation, among others. Additional modules are offered allowing for the exporting of measurement and performance data, and a billing module that provides a WAN costs chargeback template.

Performing the actual work of the traffic management is the individual ip|engines, hardware appliances that reside at each remote office (at their WAN access point). The vendor states that the devices need no individual configurations (except their IP address), as they are controlled and managed by the ip|boss software; and any IP-based network is supported, including MPLS, Frame Relay, and xDSL. Multiple hardware engines are offered by the vendor, based on the amount of traffic they will manage (from 8 Mb/sec in the ip|e 5 to 1 Gb/sec in the ip|e 1800).

Functionality provided by the Ipanema system include both traffic visibility as well as features to optimize and accelerate WAN traffic.

Visibility refers to the platform's ability to automatically discover and monitor (in real-time) traffic types and application communications as they occur over the WAN. "Deep" layer 7 packet inspection is used to identify the traffic, while built-in functions allow for real-time graphical traffic displays as well as dedicated reports detailing a particular application, the volume of traffic or the number of sessions associated with different servers or users.

On the optimization/acceleration front, the vendor notes that Application Performance Objectives allow for per-user-per-application definitions of which applications are most important to the business (application definitions can encompass Layer 3-7 criteria, including app names/URLS), as well as what the "criticality" is for the business. Policies define service levels in terms of bandwidth, delay, jitter, and loss thresholds. The Ipanema system uses then uses these defined policies to govern the actual network traffic flows, including such technologies as Cooperative Tele-Optimization, which enables multiple remote sites with ip|engines to cooperatively control traffic (again, based on policies) that they direct to other sites without ip|engines (i.e., two cooperating sites can, for example, see that they are both sending large amounts of traffic to the same third site and reduce their individual bandwith to the third site accordingly); Smart Packet Forwarding; and new Smart Path technology which seeks to route branch traffic across the most appropriate link (primary link, secondary/backup DSL, etc.) again based on the traffic type, priority, and current metrics. Acceleration features of the platform include local data caching, data compression, and protocol-specific transformations.

Ipanema is available now. Contact Ipanema Technologies for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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