Winners - Best of Interop 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 – Steven Hill – Lead Judge

Congratulations to the following products and companies, which were hand-selected by InformationWeek’s panel of expert judges and revealed at the Best of Interop Awards ceremony on April 29, 2008.

“The Best of Interop Awards are always an indicator of the most innovative and exciting offerings in these product categories, and this year’s winners are no exception,” said Art Wittmann, Editor of InformationWeek. “Palo Alto Networks and each of the category winners have truly demonstrated superior technology and innovation, and deserve recognition for their contributions to the industry.”

“With the increase in exhibitors this year, competition was especially tough for the Best of Interop Awards,” said Lenny Heymann, Interop General Manager. “We congratulate Palo Alto Networks for their contributions and demonstrating Interop is the leading business technology event to come see the exciting and latest advancements in the industry.”

The 2008 Best of Interop Grand Prize Winner:

Winners in each category:

In addition to these eight category winners, two special awards were also awarded:


Data Center and Storage

Winner: Mellanox Technologies - ConnectX EN with FCoE
Judges: Drew Conry-Murray, Ray Lucchesi - Silverton Consulting

Mellanox Technologies’ ConnectX EN is a single chip that provides full Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) functionality. The ConnectX adapter supports TCP/IP stateless offload and Fibre Channel transport in hardware. The company claims the adapter can improve performance of both Ethernet and Fibre Channel environments, delivering higher IOPs and reducing latency.

The adapter is aimed at networking, storage and clustering applications, as well as virtualized environments. Mellanox says its own testing demonstrates the adapter can get line-rate throughput of jumbo frames with 5 to 16 virtual machines. The product supports VMware’s ESX and Citrix’s XenServer hypervisors.

By offloading CPU-intensive FC and SCSI processing to hardware, the adapter can boost performance across the entire switching fabric. Data center managers can also cut back on adapters, cables and switches while consolidating different traffic types across the same Ethernet link. The product uses a heat sink rather than a fan, which means one less part to fail. The ConnectX EN supports PCI-Express 2.0. Media interconnect support includes XFP, SFP, CX4 and 10GBaseT.

Infrastructure

Winner: Cisco - Cisco Nexus 7000 Series
Judges: Mike Fratto, Steve Schuchart - Current Analysis

The Nexus 7000 isn’t as much of a leap forward in technology as much as it’s the data center switching platform you will be using for the next 10 years. The 7000 is built to scale with a 15 terabits per second back plane and supporting up to 512 10Gbps ports. Future modules are planned to support 40 and 100 Gbps. One of the newest enhancements is support for enhanced Ethernet where ports support both Ethernet and Fiberchannel with Fiberchannel over Ethernet (FCoE) planned removeing the need for separate switch fabrics for data and storage. The new operating system, IOS-NX is a module IOS allowing seamless upgrades to the OS and modules with zero down time. IOS-NX also supports virtual device contexts so problems in one virtual device won’t impact other virtual devices. The Nexus 7000 is clearly designed to address the needs of the data center today and tomorrow.

Network and Application Performance Optimization

Winner: Cisco - Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE) 674 and Cisco WAAS v4.1
Judges: Mike Fratto, Mike Brandenburg - Current Analysis
Cisco WAE 674 with WAAS v4.1 and Windows Server 2008 brings together the benefits of WAN optimization which are more response applications traversing the WAN and lower WAN utilization and maintains the localized requirement of critical network services like Active Directory, DNS, and DHCP. Windows Server 2008 is the first virtual server blade , a software module, running on the WAE hardware. The virtual computer resources are limited to reserve room for the WAE to optimize WAN traffic removing the possibility of impacting WAN performance. Cisco is developing a partner program so other virtualized computers can be certified to run on the WAE, but that program won’t be as open their AXP Partner Program. The optimization of enterprise applications like SAP and Oracle applications, Microsoft Exchange, and real-time video, Cisco makes good on its promise to optimize the WAN, ensure critical services are always available, and reduce branch office costs.

Network Management, Software and Services

Winner: Splunk - The Splunk Platform (including Splunk 3.2 and Splunk for Windows)
Judges: Nick Hoover, Bruce Boardman - Syracuse University

Traditionally, network management is done in silos. Disparate software handles different systems. With that in mind, four-year-old Splunk has taken on the task of unifying management by introducing the concept of search to IT management.

The Splunk Platform collects logs, configurations, messages, alerts and stats from any software or hardware that makes information about itself available, and then allows admins to search that information, build custom reports and create alerts based on the results of continuous indexing.

That idea has proved incredibly popular. More than 150,000 copies of Splunk's free version alone have been downloaded. Companies like Netcordia, WildPackets and Radware are all packaging additional capabilities into Splunk. The system can also feed scripts into systems like IBM Tivoli.

Splunk, a Web app that looks and feels like a user friendly Web 2.0 site complete with quick-loading AJAX results and Flash-based graphs and charts, comes with a large number of canned searches right out of the box, and can access pretty much anything with a system log. That means it can search for everything from CPU usage to 503 errors and run custom reports on such obscure things as average CPU usage by user command.

In March, Splunk launched a new version, Splunk 3.2, and announced the Splunk Platform, a common set of services, APIs and SDKs to allow third parties to create their own applications to run on Splunk. Splunk's own new Splunk for PCI compliance is the first of those, and provides 125 canned searches, reports and alerts for auditing and compliance. Splunk 3.2 includes new search features and now makes Splunk available on Windows, adding to its availability on Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, AIX and Linux.

Security

Winner: Palo Alto Networks - PA-4000 Series Next Generation Firewall with PANOS v2.0
Judges: Tim Wilson, Andrew Braunberg - Current Analysis, John Sawyer

One of the goals of the Best of Interop Awards is to identify technologies that will not only change the lives of IT professionals, but also re-shape the day-to-day lives of businesses and end users. For this year’s Best of Show, we’ve selected a product that has the potential to affect IT, business, and end users: the PA-4000 next-generation firewall from Palo Alto Networks.

The PA-4000 is a firewall that can identify and monitor traffic from more than 600 applications, enabling IT to either allow, block, or restrict access to those applications across an enterprise network. Its purpose-built processor allows the PA-4000 to sort and apply company policies to every application that a user might have in the enterprise – without significantly slowing the performance of the network. The PA-4000 also allows enterprises to set policies on particular categories of applications – such as video or instant messaging – and allow or block users’ access to new and emerging applications in those categories, even if IT isn’t yet aware of them.

The PA-4000 has the potential to change the relationship between the IT security department and the rest of the business. Instead of simply saying “no” to broad types of traffic, such as HTML, the enterprise can now choose to allow, block, or restrict access to specific applications, according to the needs and culture of the business. If the company wants to allow employees to use a specific application in off hours, but not during business hours, it can do that. If it wants to allow one department to use an application but not another department, it can do that. Essentially, the Palo Alto technology enables the business to set specific policies on how its employees, customers and partners use IT resources in the course of the day – and enforce those policies with a real “gate” that prevents policy abuse. It also allows companies to see how applications are actually used within the enterprise, enabling businesses to better gauge their productivity and efficiency – not only in the IT infrastructure, but at the user’s desktop.

While the PA-4000 is still a new product on the market, we believe its potential to improve the productivity of the business and the day-to-day behavior of end users is truly great. That’s why we chose it to be this year’s Best of Show.

Software

Winner: spigit - Ideaspigit
Judges: Charlie Babcock, Brad Shimmin - Current Analysis

Many companies purport to enable the social enterprise or leverage the wisdom of crowds with Web 2.0 tools that combine voting, tagging, and annotations to bubble up ideas and issues. Often, however, mainstream crowdsourcing solutions of this type do nothing but elevate the lowest common denominator and truly valuable contributions are often lost amid the noise of a large social network. Conversely, Spigit's IdeaSpigit automates idea graduation through a series of algorithms that rank ideas based upon user and idea facets including reputation, buzz, frequency, weighted analysis, role influence and entitlements.

The end result is an enterprise social productivity solution capable of pinpointing the most qualified contributors, not just the most popular users within very large communities. Though IdeaSpigit has only been on the market a short time, it has garnered the attention of some very large, high-profile customers.

VoIP and Collaboration

Winner: Mitel - Mitel Communications Suite
Judges: Rick Martin, Rob Arnold - Current Analysis

Designed to bring unified communications to mid-sized business users of standard Sun Microsystems servers, the Mitel Communications Suite integrates the company's flagship 3300 IP Communications Platform software and other applications (mobility, Web conferencing, unified messaging, and so on) into a single system for enterprises.

Supporting up to 5000 users per Sun X4150 SunFire server, the Mitel suite features Linux-based call-processing software, HTML and XML support on desktop phones, support for Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 and SIP trunking for full interoperability for most major vendors.

With its tightly coupled call control and UC applications, the Mitel Communications Suite provides a single package, on a commercial server, for medium-sized businesses. By consolidating low-power consumption telephony and server hardware platforms, it should provide significant operating cost reductions. Managing voice services as an application on a standard Sun server offers a range of benefits to IT managers, including simplified installation, ease of maintenance, improvements in business processes, and reduce costs and time for deployments.

The Mitel CS will be available in the second quarter of 2008.

Wireless and Mobility

Winner: AirMagnet Inc. - AirMagnet Analyzer and Survey Suite for 802.11n
Judges: Frank Bulk, Sean Ginevan, Jameson Blandord

AirMagnet’s latest release of its Wi-Fi Analyzer Pro 8 and Survey PRO 6 tools in the form of a suite has raised the bar yet again. Aptly denoted “for 802.11n”, at this time this suite has no similar competitor, yet it’s a valuable, if not necessary, tool for those deploying 802.11n gear.

The survey tool provides predictive modeling for 802.11n, taking into consideration the building’s physical characteristics. One of the key features of 802.11n is MIMO which takes advantage of multipath and multiple antennas to improve link margins and performance. But multipath constantly changes, which means that SNR and RSSI measurements are insufficient proxies for predicting coverage and performance. Active surveys provide a real-world measurement of data rates, packet loss, and retry information. Predictive simulation of performance is then based on real traffic. Specific to 802.11n is the ability to display operational modes (Greenfield, Mixed, or Legacy) and channel widths to verify that the wireless network is configured as expected.

The Analyzer tool smartly adds 802.11n features without information overload. In one of the main screens an “802.11n” option can be chosen from the menu which shows only 802.11n devices and adds columns to display additional information. In the channel view screen only the rates in use are displayed rather than the 80+ PHY rates possible between 802.11a/b/g/n.

Because 802.11n has added so many new and yet unfamiliar features and options for the average network technician, the Analyzer tool includes a Learning Assistant which are mini-tutorials with graphical content. They teach best practices using live examples.

Legacy equipment reduces aggregate throughput, so Analyzer’s Airwise assists by pointing out elements that affect performance. If 802.11n APs or clients are not operating at peak performance, AirMagnet’s tool also suggests ways that settings can be optimized. If settings cannot be adjusted due to policies or circumstances outside the network technician’s control, they will at least have a better understanding of the impact. To make sure that link rates perform as advertised, AirMagnet has built in the opensource software “Iperf“ to run downstream and upstream tests that return not only speeds, but packet retries and loss that can impact those results.

Both the Analyzer and Planning products build on top of the previous versions, so all the capabilities that customers have become accustomed to remain present. The AirMagnet Laptop Analyzer and Survey Suite for 802.11n also comes with a custom 802.11n wireless adapter card.

Best Start-Up Company

Winner: Vidyo, Inc. - VidyoConferencing™
Judges: John Foley, Art Wittmann

Vidyo was picked Best Of Interop’s best startup for its innovative family of videoconferencing products. Two years in development, Vidyo introduced its product suite, ranging from desktop software to a room system, in January 2008. Other pieces include a video-conferencing gateway, portal, and router. Vidyo uses scalable video coding, or SVC, to deliver high quality video streaming over general-purpose IP networks. The VidyoRouter adapts to available bandwidth and sends end points only as many packets as they’re capable of handling throughout a video session. The end result is “high definition” video over IP, an attractive option for companies looking for a flexible, low-hassle conferencing system that doesn’t compromise on video quality. One thing we like is that the system is easily extended to workers in branch and home offices, so that managers in main offices aren’t the only ones with access. That means Vidyo’s system should find regular and widespread use in a company, rather than collect dust as a high-end system that’s only turned on for special occasions. Vidyo employs the H.264/SVC video compression standard, while its gateway connects to existing Multipoint Control Unit systems, which gives companies a way to implement newer videoconferencing technology without ditching their earlier investments. Notably, Cisco has given Vidyo its own stamp of approval; Cisco is licensing Vidyo’s technology for use in its Unified Communications desktop products.

Green Award

Winner: Foundry Networks - BigIron RX Module
Judges: Steven Hill, Art Wittmann

As the largest single consumer of energy in a typical corporate environment, more and more IT managers are being asked to find new ways to reduce rapidly increasing power costs. Hardware vendors are clearly responding to this trend with more energy-efficient products, but being truly Green can mean so much more. The 2008 winner of the Best of Interop Green Award – Foundry Networks – has looked beyond energy consumption alone and adopted an eco-friendly philosophy that covers virtually every aspect of their product from beginning to end.

Like a growing number of computer products, Foundry’s new RX-BI16XG 16-port 10GbE SFP Module for the BigIron RX Series is manufactured to RoHS specifications to reduce toxic waste during production. In operation, the module has a maximum power consumption of only 18W per 10GbE port – the lowest in its class - and each port offers an idle mode that further reduces consumption by 30% when not in use. In high-density, 10GbE applications a single BigIron RX-32 chassis using 16-port 10GbE SFP Modules supports up to 512 - 10GE ports with only a maximum power draw of 13,100W; a fraction of the power consumption of their closest competition. Foundry has also adopted the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) disposal process that supports returning the product for recycling of usable material and proper disposal.

Best of Interop

Winner: Palo Alto Networks - PA-4000 Series Next Generation Firewall with PANOS v2.0

(Also the winner in the Security category) One of the goals of the Best of Interop Awards is to identify technologies that will not only change the lives of IT professionals, but also re-shape the day-to-day lives of businesses and end users. For this year’s Best of Interop, our judges selected a product that has the potential to affect IT, business, and end users: the PA-4000 next-generation firewall from Palo Alto Networks.

The PA-4000 is a firewall that can identify and monitor traffic from more than 600 applications, enabling IT to allow, block, or restrict access to those applications across an enterprise network. Its purpose-built processor allows the PA-4000 to sort and apply company policies to every application that a user might have in the enterprise – without significantly slowing the performance of the network. The PA-4000 also allows enterprises to set policies on particular categories of applications – such as video or instant messaging – and allow or block users’ access to new and emerging applications in those categories, even if IT isn’t yet aware of them.

The PA-4000 has the potential to change the relationship between the IT security department and the rest of the business. Instead of simply saying “no” to broad types of traffic, such as HTML, the enterprise can now choose to allow, block, or restrict access to specific applications, according to the needs and culture of the business. If the company wants to allow employees to use a specific application in off hours, but not during business hours, it can do that. If it wants to allow one department to use an application but not another department, it can do that. The Palo Alto technology enables the business to set specific policies on how its employees, customers and partners use IT resources in the course of the day – and enforce those policies with a real “gate” that prevents policy abuse. It also allows companies to see how applications are actually used within the enterprise, enabling businesses to better gauge their productivity and efficiency – not only in the IT infrastructure, but at the user’s desktop.

2008 WINNERS

Winners of The Best of Interop 2008 Awards Have Been Announced. See the 2008 Winners!