Brocade’s ServerIron ADX

Brocade’s ServerIron ADX line is designed to enable low-latency delivery of business-critical Web applications from BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Siebel, and infrastructure services such as DNS, RADIUS, firewalls, and cache services. In addition, these switches support HTTP performance of up to 3 million connections per second and 70Gbps throughput. Earlier this year, Brocade unveiled software for the appliances that enables them to function as gateways between existing IPv4 networks and new ones built on IPv6

Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services

Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) appliances perform WAN optimization for locally hosting remote applications. They help reduce branch office IT costs by centralizing applications, such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008, in the data center. Cisco just unveiled a second generation of WAAS appliances that feature up to 2Gbps optimized WAN throughput, support for up to six virtual blades, and 150,000 TCP connections. Cisco also has a virtualized version of WAAS on its Unified Computing System blade servers; and an Application Control Engine for Layer 4 load-balancing and Layer 7 content-switching.

Citrix’s NetScaler

Citrix’s NetScaler appliance combines high-speed load balancing and content switching, data compression, content caching, SSL acceleration, network optimization, application visibility and application security. It’s available as both a hardware appliance or a software-based virtual appliance, and is designed to allow users to create a services delivery fabric overlay spanning enterprise and cloud data centers. It has the capability to offload servers from compute-intensive tasks, and features Layer 2 network and Layer 3 security capabilities.