Feature Story

By Kat Rollin

May 27, 2008 — You need to deliver your network services faster, cost-effectively, and more reliably — regardless of the volume and without sacrificing security to take advantage of new business opportunities created by the Internet. Traditional application delivery and load-balancing solutions are proprietary appliances that restrict agility and scalability. Sun and Zeus Technology offer a next generation solution that combines the high performance throughput and virtualization of Sun CoolThreads technology-based servers running the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and the power of Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager (ZXTM).

In addition, IT organizations are embracing server virtualization to create a streamlined datacenter that is adaptable and conserves power, space, and cooling. But, to maintain acceptable service levels in a virtualized environment requires a load balancing and application delivery solution that can quickly adapt and scale with changes in demand and the infrastructure.

A New Approach to Application Delivery

ZXTM makes networked and Web-enabled applications faster, more reliable, secure, and easier to manage. Application delivery and load-balancing functions are delivered in software, allowing for much greater flexibility than proprietary hardware load-balancing solutions. ZXTM runs on industry-standard Intel, AMD, and SPARC processors and sits between the firewall/router and back-end Web and application servers. It manages application traffic by inspecting, transforming, and routing requests as it load-balances them to the fastest currently available server for maximum performance. It can also selectively cache Web objects locally to reduce the load on Web and content servers. Its powerful TrafficScript engine enables you to implement application delivery policies to give you full control over how individual requests are managed, thus increasing performance and security. You can also use Java Extensions to create application delivery rules for sophisticated content manipulation, authentication, etc.

Unlike proprietary hardware appliances, ZXTM decouples the software from the hardware, so licenses can be transferred onto faster systems when they become available. CoolThreads technology in the Sun UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors, as well as 10 gigabit Ethernet makes this decoupling even more possible by delivering real-time performance for packet processing and request routing, thus eliminating the need for dedicated hardware. Dual, multithreaded 10 Gbit Ethernet, integrated on the UltraSPARC T2 processor, delivers up to 4x the performance of current network interface cards, without the cost of the cards. In addition, up to 64 ZXTM nodes can be deployed in a cluster, providing both high availability and linear scaling of performance.

ZXTM software is highly scalable and takes full advantage of the chip multithreading technology of CoolThreads technology and the multithreaded performance of the Solaris 10 OS, which optimizes performance on up to 128 threads. Each thread can handle its own sequence of traffic requests, taking maximum advantage of ZXTM's scalability. In addition, you can implement virtual switches with Solaris Logical Domains (Solaris LDoms), Solaris Containers, and Solaris IP instances to serve different network zones such as production, development, and test. By running ZXTM on CoolThreads technology-based servers with Solaris 10, you can achieve the highest levels of sustained throughput observed with ZXTM software (4.5 gigabits of traffic per second on a single server) and take advantage of no cost virtualization technologies

High-Speed Encryption

If you need to encrypt content, this puts an even greater load on your Web infrastructure. The integrated on-chip cryptographic accelerator on the UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors provides high performance for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. ZXTM takes advantage of the Solaris Cryptographic Framework (SCF), which automatically offloads SSL processing to the powerful on-chip accelerator, practically eliminating the performance penalty of encryption and decryption services and enables all SSL certificates to be easily managed from one place.

Free Trials

You can experience the power of Zeus ZXTM and Sun firsthand and risk free. Download an evaluation copy of ZXTM to run on an existing server, or take advantage of Sun's Try and Buy program, and get a Sun systems for 60 days free and then buy at 25 to 45 percent off. You can try the solution today and then buy both the systems and ZXTM from Sun.

Sun and Zeus

Sun and Zeus work together to provide innovative, open networking solutions to address today's Web Scale challenges. ZXTM running on Sun servers offers an extremely powerful, adaptable, and scalable network application delivery system that can help you deliver network services faster, cost-effectively, and more reliably.