SoftLayer Strengthens Best-In-Class Network With Internap

November 20, 2006; 07:59 AM

On-demand hosting provider, SoftLayer Technologies announced today the installation of the Internap Performance IP service, a redundant, high-speed connectivity solution, as well as integration of the Internap Flow Control Platform™ (FCP), a premise-based route control appliance into the company’s network. “With the addition of the Internap FCP, which analyzes traffic on our network, SoftLayer has greatly increased network performance while significantly reducing the need for human intervention,” said Ric Moseley, Vice President of Engineering at SoftLayer.

According to Mr. Moseley, two GigE Internap circuits have been installed as the premium carrier, maximizing network performance and reducing latency. Coupled with the installation of the Internap FCP, the network performance has increased well beyond the capabilities of standard border gateway protocol (BGP) 4.0 routing. The FCP makes continuous route adjustments throughout the day, lowering the overall network latency to help improve performance for all users worldwide.

The Internap FCP allows providers to dynamically measure end-to-end performance of applications while also allowing users to quickly and easily establish policies to automatically implement changes based on those performance measures. “The ability of the FCP appliance to crunch real-time numbers and make the necessary changes on the fly is staggering and simply not humanly possible,” said Mr. Moseley.

On average, SoftLayer has experienced network performance improvements by 20 to 50 percent with the FCP solution due, in large part, to the appliance’s ability to identify the best performing path of network traffic. The FCP’s technology go well beyond BGP protocol, which typically selects the shortest path to route packets. Instead, the appliance selects the optimal path by taking a number of factors, such as latency and packet loss into account. The FCP automatically routes traffic around major network outages, brownouts and other issues that can degrade performance by  routing based on priorities set by SoftLayer.

“For our customers with streaming video, IPTV, VOIP and other Web-based applications requiring high quality of service standards, the addition of this appliance is very exciting,” concluded Mr. Moseley. “SoftLayer has, yet again, found a solution to increase network performance, improve the customer’s experience and create the best network connectivity found anywhere.”

About SoftLayer Technologies
Located in the INFOMART in Dallas, Texas, SoftLayer was formed in June 2005 by a team of industry executives seeking to deliver low cost next generation on-demand hosting services for the small to medium enterprise (SME). Utilizing proprietary software, coupled with the industry’s first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers unprecedented power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing unparalleled scalability. For more information please visit www.softlayer.com or call 866.398.7638.