HyperIP by NetEx Blog

2016 NetExIP-HyperIP Security Enhancement Update

Posted by Marketing

NetEx/IP® and HyperIP® Today

Network Executive Software, Inc. (NESi) brings high performance file transfer technology to the industry-standard IP environment with its NetEx/IP and HyperIP software products.

NetEx/IP is many times faster than TCP over long distances, which makes it the ideal solution for moving massive amounts of mission- or time-critical data across the country or across the globe.  As proven by our long-term users, NetEx/IP has the highest throughput rates over long distances with no degradation of performance because of its efficient bandwidth utilization and mitigation of the effects of packet loss and latency. In fact, NetEx/IP and its predecessor product NetEx/HC (HyperChannel) have provided solutions for moving data for global corporations and US state and government agencies for more than 30 years.

For existing TCP applications, the premier solution is NESi’s low cost HyperIP.  HyperIP transparently implements NetEx/IP in the data path to provide all the NetEx/IP improvements, plus compression of data, on a virtual machine without having to modify existing applications or operating procedures.

The Challenge: Securing the Data

With an increase in hacking and breaches of sensitive databases in recent years, many corporations (especially those in the financial, government, or health sectors) and US government agencies are looking at ways to better protect data transiting between sites and the databases themselves.  Data security is also of utmost importance for those customers utilizing shared/public networks.

NetEx/IP Security Enhancements

NESi recognizes this concern for data protection and is therefore planning to enhance NetEx/IP and HyperIP over the next year with standards-based security technology like Transport Layer Security (TLS) to significantly increase the security of the data being moved across the computer room, the country, or globally.

TLS is a cryptographic protocol that secures data as it is transmitted, focusing on authentication, data integrity, and data confidentiality. With TLS, keys are generated uniquely for each connection and are based on a shared secret negotiated at the start of a session, providing security between two applications using NetEx/IP or HyperIP.  Adding TLS to our NetEx/IP products will also provide improved security for our BFX & PFX utilities, which interface upward to customer applications.

In addition to data security, adaptive block compression of data will also be added to NetEx/IP, thus decreasing WAN bandwidth usage and effectively increasing the application data throughput over the network.

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Continuation of TSM 6.3 Replication testing over HyperIP

Posted by Marketing

We recently had an opportunity to test IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) release 6.3 replication in our HyperIP lab. IBM just released this feature as part of their TSM 6.3 release in November. As stated in our previous Blog entry about TSM Backup testing, http://www.netex.com/blog/?p=175, it is important to first determine the overall limits of the native application before WAN acceleration.

Our test configuration included two HyperIP WAN Optimization virtual appliances, two windows servers running TSM 6.3, and a distance simulator for the WAN. The WAN simulator has the ability to inject packet loss, network latency, and other network conditions over various bandwidths that can degrade replication performance.

Like many other applications, replication is designed for the datacenter – to – datacenter movement of corporate data. Most replication applications perform very well when moving data over short distances, or in a metro environment. Customers running TSM Replication, in many cases, will need the remote site to be extended over the WAN, to an internal DR site, DR Service Provider, or Cloud Storage Provider. Any time distance is needed, network conditions such as latency and packet loss can significantly degrade application performance and become a huge impact on the throughput and application efficiency.

In our lab when latency and packet loss is experienced TSM native replication performance slowed by over 80% due to the typical inefficiencies of the TCP transport and not necessarily the fault of the TSM application. When HyperIP was added to the configuration, TSM Replication was able to achieve throughput equivalent to native performance and no delay. In fact HyperIP was able to help TSM Replication achieve near native line speeds at distances represented by 40 ms RTT, 80 ms RTT, 320 ms RTT all the way up to a 1 second RTT. TSM Replication over HyperIP proved to perform quite well at any distance, even with a significant amount of packet loss. In some cases HyperIP will accelerate TSM Replication by 6X. If 2:1 compression is possible then the TSM acceleration with HyperIP may approach 12X. Check it out for yourself. Download HyperIP by clicking on the big orange box above.

Want more information about TSM performance with HyperIP? Send an email to info@netex.com.

Links to our Product information and Best Practices are found here:
HyperIP product info: http://www.netex.com/hyperip
TSM Best Practices with HyperIP: http://www.netex.com/index.php/download_file/view/301
Become a HyperIP reseller: http://www.netex.com/partners/register
IBM PartnerWorld Link: HyperIP Virtual WAN Optimization
IBM Tivoli Storage Blog Link: NetEx HyperIP Accelerates TSM Replication

 

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HyperIP Series – You Asked About TSM Testing with HyperIP..

Posted by DaveHuhne

We recently had an opportunity to test IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Client to a TSM Server in our HyperIP lab. When doing any kind of application verification or performance testing it is important to first determine the overall limits of the native application with and without WAN acceleration.

Lab testing in an emulated environment is a good way to test applications because you can mimic certain network topologies and characteristics. In our case the HyperIP lab consists of two HyperIP WAN Optimization virtual appliances, two windows servers, and a distance simulator for the WAN. The simulator has the ability to inject packet loss, network latency and other network conditions over various bandwidths that can degrade application performance.

The main objective with any test is to try to validate whether the HyperIP can accelerate the application over various distances with varying latency and packet loss scenarios. Every application has its own performance characteristics and limitations. The same is true for WAN networks. They are about as unique as fingerprints.

Like many backup applications TSM was designed for the data center and performs very well when moving data short distances. Since we are truly becoming a global society is it important to be able to move data over longer distances which is clearly a requirement of cloud storage environments.

With the case of IBM TSM, we started off testing with a simple delay of 10 ms round trip time (RTT). At this relatively short distance TSM slowed by 80% compared to its native performance. This is typical application degradation due primarily to the inefficiencies of the TCP transport and not necessarily the fault of the TSM application. When HyperIP was added to the configuration, the TSM application was able to achieve throughput equivalent to native performance and no delay. In fact HyperIP was able to help TSM achieve near native performance rates at distances represented by 40 ms RTT, 80 ms RTT, 320 ms RTT all the way up to a 1 second RTT. This is a testament to how well TSM and HyperIP interoperate together.

Many applications have internal limitations such as outstanding operations, queue size, or queue depth that artificially restrict the application’s ability to maximize throughput. That was certainly not the case with TSM. TSM can certainly pump data over the network when it is not encumbered with TCP performance issues. When operating TSM with HyperIP, the two combined can sustain the same throughput rates whether running across town, across the ocean, or around the world. That was very impressive. TSM over HyperIP brings LAN-like performance to WAN-based remote backups.

 

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HyperIP Series – You Asked About Multiple Interfaces….

Posted by DaveHuhne

Everybody tells me this is going to be easy so I’m finally going to try HyperIP. Now let me see again where is the HyperIP website. Okay I’ve downloaded the OVF file, now what? Oh yeah, I need to watch the HyperIP Support Tutorial videos on their website. Very cool, these HyperIP guys sure try and make it easy for us rookies. I like that.

Now what’s next? Oh install the Virtual Appliance on my virtual platform (VMware ESX or Microsoft Hyper-V) and start configuring. Makes sense. Wait a moment it looks like I need management and data ports. I only have one NIC on my server. Hmmm… what do I do now?

We’ve heard this type of story a few times and want to take this opportunity to clarify some interface points. HyperIP has two interfaces; a data and management port. The data interface is used for all traffic using the HyperIP tunnel and may also be used to manage HyperIP. The management port is available when a separate management network is required. If the management interface is used, be sure to set up routing in the HyperIP so traffic takes the proper path.

Okay I have my management and data ports configured and am having trouble sending any traffic, what’s up? The most common issue we’ve seen here is from the interfaces being on the same network. The management and data ports cannot exist on the same subnet. If a second subnet is not available, use only the data port in your configuration.

Okay I have my management port pointing out the WAN and the data port on the LAN, why aren’t the HyperIPs able to communicate? The HyperIPs only talk to each other on the data interfaces. No traffic flows between the data and management ports.

Okay I have the two interfaces configured on the networks that will be sending traffic across HyperIP and only some servers can communicate. Why is that? HyperIP acts like a one-armed router where traffic using HyperIP comes in, and is sent out, on the same data interface. The data interface will be used for servers and storage that will utilize HyperIP. If the HyperIP cannot be placed in the same network as the servers and storage, routes or access lists can be used in routers to direct traffic at HyperIP.

Alright I have both interfaces configured to the same VLAN and one NIC card. That should work shouldn’t it? The data and management interfaces cannot be on the same network. In this situation, only use the data interface for traffic and management. You will need to set user access to allow a browser on the data port.

Well I think that has answered my management questions.
Thanks very much HyperIP.

 

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Nothing Like a Tasty Hot Dog at the Ballpark…

Posted by Marketing

We love talking about our customer success stories.

Below is a brief success story about Ovations Food Services. They deliver fresh food and beverages to public assembly facilities throughout the United States and Canada. They specialize in providing food services to stadiums, arenas, convention centers, fairgrounds, expo-centers, auto racing, casinos, performing arts centers and amphitheaters.

With multiple locations in North America, Ovations uses Veeam’s Backup & Replication to replicate integral virtual machines between Philadelphia and Tampa, all over a 20 Mb/s WAN. They replicate approximately 10 GB/s daily however at times were seeing replications take over 15 hours to complete for a single virtual machine. Ovations needed help.

The Veeam Backup & Replication application was experiencing degraded performance due to high latency and packet loss on the WAN. Backup windows were difficult to achieve and the WAN was not used as efficiently as it could. Not the fault of the Veeam application.

So what happened?

Ovations was already a Veeam customer and decided to test the HyperIP Virtual Appliance via a 30 day evaluation from the NetEx website; http://netex.com/eval. HyperIP was implemented in a very short period of time and almost instantly Veeam’s Backup & Replication application throughput improved by 7x. This allowed Ovations to reduce their replication window from 15 hours to 3 hours.

Ovations considered WAN optimization solutions from both Blue Coat & Riverbed, but decided their virtual appliance solutions were too expensive and the virtual machine footprints for these solutions required too many system resources when compared to the thin footprint of the HyperIP.

HyperIP exceeded Ovation’s expectations for their replication requirement. Not only is HyperIP aggregating the transfer of Veeam but other important applications as well. HyperIP is great at shielding applications from network issues that would normally degrade transfer performance and throughput.

Another happy HyperIP customer.

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Riverbed Asked the Question, HyperIP Responded…

Posted by Marketing

In a recent blog Riverbed challenged other WAN optimization vendors to answer the question “Do competitors’ products work as well as Riverbed?” Well, since they asked, the answer is yes. In fact, HyperIP WAN Optimization virtual appliance works better than Riverbed.

First off, Riverbed poses the question of WAN optimization support for all important applications. We find it somewhat humorous that Riverbed would ask such a question about competitors’ application support when HyperIP has long set the standard in the industry for the broadest support in accelerating critical replication and backup applications of any WAN optimizer and does this with a virtual appliance (software). HyperIP accelerates replication applications from CA, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NetApp, Oracle, Quantum, Veeam and many more. A full list of supported applications can be found at http://www.netex.com/hyperip/supported-applications. In addition, NetEx is a VMware Technology Alliance Partner and HyperIP is ideal for supercharging vMotion and Storage vMotion migration over the WAN. HyperIP also supports Hyper-V live migrations over the WAN.

Riverbed also asked if other vendor’s products are useful for all their requirements. This is probably the wrong question to ask, as many customers don’t have a critical need to accelerate the movement of Microsoft Office documents between a central data center and branch offices. Or speed up their VOIP apps. Most companies don’t want to pay for products that they will not use. A better question is to ask how a product performs for business critical replication and disaster recovery requirements to meet specific Recovery Time Objectives.

Assuming that its products are the only WAN optimizers that people actually like, Riverbed then wants to know if other customers are happy with the vendor’s products. Well, I can’t speak for other companies but I know NetEx customers are very happy with HyperIP. In fact, more and more of our customers are choosing HyperIP over Riverbed. Take a look at our TechValidate research page for HyperIP customer testimonials. You’ll seem that many customers tried Riverbed and selected HyperIP instead.

Finally, Riverbed makes the claim that less-expensive products aren’t up to the task and wonders why competitive products are cheaper in the first place? With HyperIP by NetEx the answer is simple. HyperIP is deployed as a software-only virtual appliance running on VMware. There is no need for customers to waste precious IT budget dollars on expensive, proprietary Riverbed hardware that can’t be upgraded or installed in minutes anywhere in the world. Riverbed needs to understand that the purchase price isn’t the only component of product cost equation. HyperIP allows users to migrate to higher network speeds with a simple software key upgrade, no forklift hardware upgrade, no waiting weeks or months to get the hardware appliance ordered, delivered, installed and configured. To answer Riverbed’s question, HyperIP is a cost-effective WAN Optimization solution that was designed to deliver the performance of a hardware WAN optimizer but with the customer cost savings of server virtualization and the deployment speed, simplicity and flexibility of a virtual server appliance.

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