From the Gilder Technology Website -Novell Update (8/23/00)
by Mary Collins
Novell (NOVL) has been working in the Web content routing space for three years now. Their Internet Caching System (Novell ICS) was piloted at JustOn, which they have since acquired. JustOn is a Web based service that stores files on a private network for quick and secure file sharing and distribution.
When four Novell ICS boxes were placed in front of JustOn's four existing Sun servers, JustOn's request handling capability jumped from 40 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps. Close to $2.8 million was saved in reduced hardware and maintenance costs. One ICS box takes the place of ten Web servers, takes less
than ten minutes to install and can support multiple Web environments (NetWare, Cisco, Windows NT, Solaris, Linux, etc.). By removing the bottleneck away from JustOn's origin servers and onto the Internet backbone, JustOn was able to accelerate data to the Web at such a rate that Novell actually received complaints from ISPs who were not prepared for the increased traffic loads. I did not know whether I should mention the names of the companies that got Excited over the AdditiOnaL bandwidth consumption incurred across their networks.
Novell spent $40 million, this year, developing Content Exchange to leverage ICS technologies. Content Exchange uses content routing rather than IP packet routing. Content routers (proxy caches) are placed at origin servers at the "first foot" of the Internet. The proxies dynamically transform Web content for distribution, preparing URL's in real-time without having to touch the servers, thus acting
as accelerators to speed transmission of data to the Web. Once the data reaches the Internet, it is taken over by a content distributor to be moved to the end user. Novell has recently entered into agreements with Mirror Image (June 13) and Digital Island (June 21). MII sighted the efficiency and automation of Novell's Content Exchange as a key in the collaborative end-to-end content delivery solution. Novell
customers can choose to have data delivered by the content distributor of their choice. GlobalCenter is the first complex Web hosting provider to incorporate Novell's Content Exchange technology into their network infrastructure. The Novell proxy caches working for GlobalCenter are capable of handling 90 percent of requests straight out of cache. The GlobelCenter deal not only validates Novell's technology but also creates an entirely new business model for Novell.
Priced for a high adoption rate, Novell is now charging, per bit, all of data that passes through their caches. Novell
and GlobalCenter will co-market their cross connect reverse proxy to Web publishers (publicly available soon).
Datek Online, the U.S.'s fourth largest online brokerage, which handles 80,000 trades per day and ZipLink Canada, the country's top ISP, were among the first companies to sign up for Novell's ICS. Speed is of the utmost importance in the trading industry and Datek determined Novell to be the best
choice to meet their needs. Dell.com also went live with ICS in early June. In a joint venture, Novell, Compaq, Sun and CGMI have created a net-based content delivery service called CGMion. Novell is calling this a pure long-term Internet play that will help Novell gain momentum in the public exchange marketplace. Novell is rapidly gaining ubiquity in the broadband data service market as well, via the NDS eDirectory. The NDS eDirectory and Texas Instrument's programmable digital signal processors (DSPs) have united to form an intelligent broadband gateway service device.
Countless opportunities are yet to be had for Novell in the broadband data and personalized content market. Earlier this month Novell and Sun Microsystems announced that a NDS eDirectory attached to a single Sun Enterprise 450 server successfully scaled to a level capable to holding over one billion objects at one time. Up until this point, similar levels were only attainable by attaching multiple servers
in parallel. This demonstration of vertical scaling to consolidate workloads leads to ease in manageability (only one device to manage). Improved manageability leads to improvements in scalability, reliability, availability and serviceability.
Eric Schmidt's decision to split Novell into four distinct business groups was not an attempt to recreate the company, but to refocus. The Net Content Division (includes NDS eDirectory) will focus on the rate at which Novell was addressing the Internet, taking an in depth look at net content rather than net software. They have made a handful of major announcements since the implementation of the new
business plan. Expect the floodgates open fully in September. Novell is working closely with AT&T
on their end-to-end digital media platform, Ecosystem for Media and with IBM on Websphere, a middleware software platform. |
