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Exinda Networks Controls Broad Range of Recreational Internet Traffic Slipping Past Corporate Firewalls
Exinda's New Capability Detects and Controls Encrypted Peer-to-Peer Traffic That Cripples Corporate Applications
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November 20, 2007 - Boston - Exinda Networks today announced an enhancement to its WAN optimization appliances that helps control a broad range of recreational Internet traffic, such as instant messaging, gaming and downloading files for entertainment, that significantly slows business applications on corporate networks. Exinda's new feature detects and blocks or slows recreational Internet traffic, called encrypted peer-to-peer traffic, that cleverly slips past corporate firewalls, ensuring that business applications are not negatively impacted. Exinda is the only WAN optimization vendor that can detect, classify and control more than 1,000 applications which includes encrypted peer-to-peer traffic.
The ability to detect and control this traffic also saves companies money and keeps employees more productive by not having to wait for business applications to respond. According to a survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com in June, 2005 employers spend $759 billion per year on salaries for which real work was expected, but not actually performed. Web surfing for recreational use was cited as the #1 time waster at work by 44.7 percent of more than 10,000 people polled.
Skype, BitTorrent, MySpace and Facebook are among the most common Web applications that send encrypted peer-to-peer network traffic over corporate networks. Skype, a free software that is used for both business and recreational purposes, offers instant messaging, file transfer and video capabilities and is well known for its ability to circumvent firewalls. BitTorrent is an application most commonly used for social purposes to download large files including movies, TV shows, games and MP3 audio files. MySpace and Facebook are social networking applications for sharing photos, personal profiles, videos and more. Recreational use of these applications are gaining in popularity, negatively impacting business applications. Exinda's appliances can detect, classify and control 98 percent of BitTorrent traffic whereas other WAN optimization vendors allow this traffic to pass undetected or at best only detect and classify half of the rogue traffic.
According to a survey conducted by Ashton, Metzler & Associates in August, 2006, 63 percent of IT professionals see unauthorized use of company networks for instant messaging and 58 percent see unauthorized use for peer-to-peer file sharing. The statistics are likely much higher given that these two types of traffic go highly undetected by most firewalls.
"The recreational use of Skype and BitTorrent has become a serious problem for companies and service providers," said Con Nikolouzakis, chief executive office of Exinda Networks. "These recreational applications have a way of making business application run as if they were in slow motion. They have been known to crash the network in some instances. It's disruptive to employees and adds unnecessary expense to operate the corporate network."
Nikolouzakis added "There are situations where encrypted peer-to-peer traffic is used for legitimate business purposes such as conference calls being hosted on Skype. In those instances, it is important to be able to detect and prioritize this traffic rather than restrict it. Until now, WAN optimization vendors have fallen short on properly handling encrypted peer-to-peer traffic."
Skype and BitTorrent traffic were designed to use different network ports and file server IP addresses making it very difficult for firewalls to detect it. Exinda's new feature classifies Skype and BitTorrent traffic using Layer 7 heuristics to detect traffic patterns and apply the proper network policy to control it.
Additionally, Exinda's new heuristics-based classification speeds data at up to 100 times faster than before. Faster classification is helpful in large service provider and enterprise networks handling large amounts of data and numerous applications.
Availability and Pricing
Exinda's new classification engine will be available on December 3, 2007 as part of a firmware update at no charge to Exinda customers who have a current software subscription. Visit
www.exinda.com/support/ for more details.
About Exinda Networks
Exinda Networks is a global supplier of Unified Performance Management that integrates WAN optimization, application acceleration, application visibility and application response time measurements for enterprise, government and service provider clients. Founded in 2002, Exinda's mission is to ensure optimal and consistent application performance over the WAN and reduce network operating costs. Exinda has more than 1,000 customers in more than 35 countries around the world. Exinda's award winning technology is available by contacting leading resellers or Exinda directly.
Research and development offices are located in Melbourne, Australia. Exinda's U.S. headquarters is located in Boston, Massachusetts. Additional corporate offices are located in Dubai, Frankfurt, London and Kuala Lumpur. For more information, visit
www.exinda.com.
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Questions & Answers
Exinda's New Layer 7 Heuristics Announcement
November 19, 2007
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Q: What is Exinda's Layer 7 heuristics announcement about?
A: Exinda Networks has announced a new feature for its x700 and x800 appliances that identifies, classifies and controls encrypted peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic that goes largely undetected by corporate firewalls.
Q: Why is it important?
A: Exinda's new capability is important because recreational P2P traffic that is undetected on corporate networks is stealing bandwidth and slowing the performance of important business applications. It is difficult to quantify exactly how much expense recreational traffic is costing corporations. But there are costs associated with employees being unproductive as they wait for poorly performing business applications to respond. There are also unwanted expenses from companies having to add bandwidth to accommodate the growing amount of recreational traffic congesting the network.
Q: How prevalent is recreational use of corporate networks?
A: While it is difficult to get a precise figure on the percentage of recreational traffic on corporate networks, a recent survey by Ashton, Metzler & Associates reveals that it is quite high. The survey said 63% of IT professionals see unauthorized use of company networks for instant messaging and 58% see unauthorized use for peer-to-peer file sharing. The statistics are likely much higher given that these two types of traffic go highly undetected on corporate networks.
Q: Why is P2P traffic difficult to detect and control? How does Exinda detect and control it?
A: Some P2P applications such as Skype and BitTorrent are designed to use different network ports and IP addresses. They use a decentralized communications method to search and download content, which makes it very difficult for firewalls to detect it. Exinda's new feature classifies Skype and BitTorrent traffic using Layer 7 heuristics to detect traffic patterns and apply the proper network policy to control it.
Q: What other benefits does Layer 7 heuristics bring to customers?
A: Exinda's new Layer 7 heuristics is superior to other classification engines because it can classify more applications at a much faster rate. It classifies applications at 100 times faster than Exinda's current classification engine. It also requires less CPU for classification, which is freed to be used otherwise.
Q: Who will benefit the most from this new capability?
A: Enterprise customers will benefit because recreational use of the corporate network is on the rise. It also ensures that the priority of accelerated applications is protected from being clobbered by recreational traffic. Recreational traffic can come from a branch office which can potentially deem acceleration useless. Without classification and control of the recreational traffic, there is no guarantee of consistent application performance. Service providers will also benefit from this new capability because of the high volume of P2P Internet traffic on their networks.
Q: Is all encrypted P2P traffic for recreational use of the network?
A: No, some P2P traffic on corporate networks is for legitimate business purposes (e.g., using Skype for conference calls, file sharing or collaborating on work projects via instant message). In these instances, it is important to detect and classify this type of traffic so that it can be given a higher priority over recreational traffic.
Q: When will this new feature be available?
A: Exinda's new features will be available on December 3, 2007 as part of a firmware update at no extra charge to Exinda customers who have a current software subscription. The firmware can be downloaded. Visit
www.exinda.com/support/ for more details. The Exinda appliance must be rebooted to activate the new features.
Q: What does heuristics mean?
A: With heuristics, the appliances take an educated best guess when classifying traffic for encrypted applications. It is not an exact science, which means that there will still be some traffic that is not correctly classified. For example, Exinda can accurately classify 98% of encrypted BitTorrent traffic. Non-encrypted applications can be classified at 100%. Note that the appliance needs to see that start of BitTorrent connections in order to classify. In a production network it usually takes up to 24 hours before the Exinda can start to classify all BitTorrent connections on the network.
Q: How does Exinda's capability compare to others products?
A: Exinda's new classification engine is about speed and accuracy. Exinda's classification engine is faster and more accurate than other vendors. For example, Packeteer's appliance can classify approximately 60% of encrypted BitTorrent traffic while Exinda can accurately classify 98%. However, exact metrics for competitive products are yet to be confirmed.
Contact Information |
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