It's an odd claim to fame, but you have to admit it's unique: Peribit Networks, which builds network appliances that speed up WAN traffic, uses algorithms initially designed to examine DNA sequences -- turns out the math was also pretty good for identifying strings of large, repetitive data traffic. By identifying and then eliminating repetitve data patterns, Peribit claims its products can significantly improve network efficiency, while also lowering transmission costs, features that appeal to any network manager's heart and wallet.
Networking Pipeline caught up with Peribit president and chief executive Jef Graham recently, to talk a bit about the application-acceleration market in general, and why it's attracting the interest of startup companies as well as the major networking vendors like Cisco and Juniper.
Networking Pipeline: Peribit makes products that optimize WAN traffic. But aren't service providers also trying to address that space themselves? Is it just going to be a long time before that happens, when they can deliver things like Ethernet to a building?
Jef Graham: Remember, just having MPLS doesn't give you Ethernet. There's a lot of talk about dark fiber. And there is dark fiber around, but it's mostly between the big hubs. Most of the places we find customers, it's copper. And it's those [connections] that are the points of pain. There will be places when [Peribit's products] aren't cost-effective. But remember we provide two values: The [data] compression, which is basically alternative capacity, and the other one is improvement in performance.
Networking Pipeline: Is there any customer resistance to the need to have a Peribit box on each end of the connection?
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