ArrowPoint Helps Boost Road Runner's Broadband Web Content Delivery by More Than 50 Percent.WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 1999-- Microsoft, Time Warner-backed online service provider deploys ArrowPoint Web switches for fastest Web content delivery in America At a time when droves of consumers are turning to their cable companies for fast Internet access See how to access the Internet. , ArrowPoint Communications, Inc. has announced that Road Runner road runner: see cuckoo. Road Runner thrives on outwitting Wile E. Coyote. [Comics: “Beep Beep the Road Runner” in Horn, 105] See : Cunning Road Runner , a joint venture among affiliates of Time Warner Inc., MediaOne Group MediaOne Group, Inc. was a media/cable TV company that was formed in 1995 as U S WEST Media Group. It was created to eliminate competition between U S WEST's telephone service and cable TV businesses. , Microsoft Corp., Compaq Corp. and Advance/Newhouse, has installed ArrowPoint's Content Smart(TM) Web switches at 21 data centers nationwide. Road Runner, the nation's leading high-speed online service provider, is using the ArrowPoint Web switches to ensure lightning-fast broadband Web content delivery to hundreds of thousands of users simultaneously. By deploying ArrowPoint's CS-100 Content Smart Web switches, Road Runner is placing content within immediate reach of 320,000 subscribers - the nation's largest cable modem cable modem Modem used to convert analog data signals to digital form and vise versa, for transmission or receipt over cable television lines, especially for connecting to the Internet. subscription base - on a network with access to 10.4 million homes. Road Runner is using the Web switches in combination with caches to deliver Web content up to 100 percent faster than standard dial-in connections. ArrowPoint's Web switches have helped boost performance of the Road Runner network by an estimated 50 to 75 percent and have reduced the need for Road Runner to purchase additional bandwidth. "Broadband access See broadband and wireless broadband. fundamentally changes Internet access," said Peter Christy, the managing partner for research at the Internet Research This article is about using the Internet for research; for the field of research about the Internet, see Internet studies. Internet research is the practice of using the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, for research. Group (Los Altos, CA). "With the last mile problems fixed, other performance issues are exposed, including the delays and losses in the Internet itself. With cable access, caching content near the subscriber is a necessity to deliver on the promise of broadband. The ArrowPoint Content Smart Web switch is a uniquely powerful device for managing high bandwidth Web traffic and optimizing content delivery from local content caches." Road Runner chose ArrowPoint for their broadband service because ArrowPoint's Web switches offered the only solution for directing Web traffic based on the content requested. Layer 4 switches, such as those from Alteon Networks or Foundry Networks, make load balancing decisions based on TCP (1) (Transmission Control Protocol) The reliable transport protocol within the TCP/IP protocol suite. TCP ensures that all data arrive accurately and 100% intact at the other end. port 80, offering no glimpse into what content is being requested other than that it is HTTP HTTP in full HyperText Transfer Protocol Standard application-level protocol used for exchanging files on the World Wide Web. HTTP runs on top of the TCP/IP protocol. . With ArrowPoint's Web switches, Road Runner is able to control what content is cached by defining policies that direct the switch to send requests for Road Runner's home page, as well as other popular content, to the caches, while bypassing them for non-cacheable content, such as CGI CGI in full Common Gateway Interface. Specification by which a Web server passes data between itself and an application program. Typically, a Web user will make a request of the Web server, which in turn passes the request to a CGI application program. or ASP. No other switch on the market delivers this level of intelligence for Web traffic management. "Road Runner is offering its subscribers the fastest, most reliable and advanced broadband online experience possible, and the ArrowPoint Web switch is helping us maintain our performance advantage while saving on bandwidth expenses," said Stephen Van Beaver, Road Runner's senior vice president of operations. "We consider ArrowPoint's Web switches a strategic tool integral to providing one of the fastest online content delivery services See CDN. in the nation. We are confident that ArrowPoint will contribute significantly to our ongoing ability to grow our subscriber base and attract world-class content providers to Road Runner." Delivering on the promise of broadband To meet growing demands for bandwidth, reliability and speed on the Web, Internet service providers Internet service provider (ISP) Company that provides Internet connections and services to individuals and organizations. For a monthly fee, ISPs provide computer users with a connection to their site (see data transmission), as well as a log-in name and password. , as well as backbone and infrastructure providers, are spending billions of dollars for more bandwidth. Internet backbone congestion The condition of a network when there is not enough bandwidth to support the current traffic load. congestion - When the offered load of a data communication path exceeds the capacity. and latency have prevented broadband access technologies like cable modems from functioning at their true potential. Selectively routing requests for popular content to local caches, away from the Web's congestion, delivers faster response times and satisfied users. Bypassing caches for non-cacheable content relieves them from extraneous processing and latency. ArrowPoint's Web switches enable Road Runner to maximize the power of cable modems and reliably deliver Web pages to end users at speeds no other broadband provider can match. ArrowPoint's CS-100 and CS-800 Content Smart Web switches provide a front-end for Web server farms or cache clusters, maximizing server resources and optimizing Web cache performance. Web switches dynamically direct specific content requests to the best site and best server at that moment, avoiding busy or overloaded sites. Because ArrowPoint's products have the unique intelligence to differentiate content based on universal resource locator Universal Resource Locator - Uniform Resource Locator (URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. ) and cookies, they are the only solution to provide policy-based prioritization for premium content requests or preferred users and tailor quality of service accordingly. ArrowPoint's Web switches are the only switches available that provide Smart Content Replication(TM). Web switches track all content requests, and identify developing flash crowds before they overwhelm servers. By dynamically replicating only "hot" content to caches, ArrowPoint's Web switches provide overflow capacity in response to real-time events such as a hurricane or the Victoria's Secret fashion Webcast. This feature enables "flash" crowd insurance services that eliminate the burden of manually replicating high-demand content and the expense of "over-building" services infrastructure for peak traffic loads. "ArrowPoint's Web switches' unique ability to bypass caches for non-cacheable content optimizes the performance of Road Runner's caching solutions and Web servers," said ArrowPoint president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Cheng Wu. "A deployment on this scale by the industry leaders backing Road Runner - companies like Microsoft, Time Warner and Media One - is undeniable proof of concept for Web switching, and reinforces the validity of our solution for a fast, reliable Web without downtime, errors or long downloads." About Road Runner Road Runner (www.rr.com) has more subscribers in the United States than any other cable broadband online service, serving in excess of 320,000 customers in the communities where it is available. It is a joint venture among affiliates of Time Warner Inc., MediaOne Group, Microsoft Corp., Compaq Corp. and Advance/Newhouse. It combines the resources and strategic talent of the five partners who are world leaders in media, broadband communications, computer software and hardware and publishing. The Road Runner character is a trademark and copyright of Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) ., a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. About ArrowPoint ArrowPoint Communications has pioneered Web switching, the next generation networking Next Generation Networking (NGN) is a broad term to describe some key architectural evolutions in telecommunication core and access networks that will be deployed over the next 5-10 years. technology that optimizes Web response times and reliability for a consistently positive user experience. ArrowPoint's products are used in a broad range of applications, including electronic commerce, Web publishing, Web caching and value-added Web hosting services. The company is headquartered in Westford, Mass., with regional offices in Alton, Hampshire, United Kingdom and Singapore. For more information, call 978.692.5875 or visit the company Web site at www.arrowpoint.com. |
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