NetEqualizer Bandwidth Shaper

Staffing Update
We are very pleased to announced that two former Packeteer EMEA sales executives have joined APconnections. Rob Krol was appointed VP of EMEA sales and Wim Timmer, director of sales support. Rob, with the support of Wim, is responsible for building APconnections EMEA sales and distribution channels. He held a similar position with Packeteer, where he was responsible for building the company's distribution, service provider and enterprise channel in over 30 countries and grew business to almost $20 million in 2003.

Customer Update
September was a very exciting month for APconnections. On the customer front, we announced that Colorado wireless services providers (WISPs) AirWave Access and Mesa Networks purchased the NetEqualizer Data Shaper products for deployment throughout their wireless footprint—once installation is complete, they’ll have 45 units up and running.

In addition, we announced that Premier Business Centers has purchased NetEqualizer to assure quality of service at their high-occupancy executive centers across the Western United States. According to Premier Business Centers, our plug-and-play traffic shaping products have reduced their bandwidth costs while lowering calls to customer service by over 90%. Here’s what their Director of IT had to say about their experience with NetEqualizer:

Quality, reliable and consistently fast, high-speed T-1 Internet access is of vital importance to our customers," said Constantino Andaya, director of IT for Premier Business Centers. To assure our customers of quality service even during times of peak usage, we installed NetEqualizer. Installation took minutes and we haven't had to re-configure the box since the initial setup.

Premier Business Centers lease office space in class A buildings across the United States and then sublease that space with value-added services, including high-speed Internet access, to professional tenants through its executive office centers. Premier Business Center operates over 34 properties in California, Texas and Washington State, with an average of 60 offices per location. The company has deployed the NetEqualizer in ten of its properties.

Resellers
APconnections is pleased to announce that Kansas-based A/F CommSupply will begin reselling the NetEqualizer product family immediately. A/F CommSupply provides quality wireless communications equipment to resellers and self-maintained end users in the LMR/SMR/ESMR, paging, cellular, broadcast, government, public safety, PCS/PCN, broadband wireless and related markets. For more information on A/F CommSupply, please visit their Website at http://www.afcommsupply.com/.

Product Update
We will have an automated turn key upgrade by mid November. To qualify for this version your purchase date must be no earlier than May 1 2004. Contact us about an upgrade fee if your 6 months has expired.

Technical Feature
Learn how NetEqualizer's connection limit feature prevents p2p connections from hurting your network.

Peer-to-peer connections can hurt your network more than bandwidth loss.

When peer-to-peer file sharing first became popular, the earliest versions such as Napster, operated by searching the Internet to find a host with the file requested. Once found, Napster would then initiate a single file transfer. More often than not, the sending host was slow, and the file transfer would take several hours.

Next came p2p applications like Gnutella. These second generation peer-to-peer applications optimize speed by breaking the file into many pieces and then receiving each piece from a different source. This approach essentially creates many downloads (connections) where before there was just one. When multiple users running Gnutella download files simultaneously, the effect on the network can be overwhelming. A recent experiment with Bearshare demonstrated that downloading just a single file, resulted in over 150 connections.

Routers and firewalls usually feel the effects of p2p applications long before there is a bandwidth issue. The overhead created by a 10-fold increase in connections on a network can render a firewall useless in just a few seconds if left unchecked.

There are manual methods to monitor and lock down these connection storms, however they can be costly in terms of labor. In addition, connection storms can be difficult to detect and track.

NetEqualizer's “connection limit” feature puts an end to connection congestion. When turned on, this feature dynamically “learns” of current connections on your network and will prevent any single host from opening more than a set amount. We typically recommend 20 connections. This feature is standard on all NetEqualizer models and is in use in some of our largest deployments.

Connection Defined:

A connection is defined as unique host and client conversation. A client receiving data from 100 hosts would create 100 connections on your network.



October 2004 Newsletter

Staffing Update We are very pleased to announced that two former Packeteer EMEA sales executives have joined APconnections. Rob Krol was appointed VP of EMEA sales and Wim Timmer, director of sales support. Rob, with the support of Wim, is responsible for building APconnections EMEA sales and distribution channels. He held a similar position with Packeteer, where he was responsible for building the company's distribution, service provider and enterprise channel in over 30 countries and grew business to almost $20 million in 2003. Customer Update September was a very exciting month for APconnections. On the customer front, we announced that Colorado wireless services providers (WISPs) AirWave Access and Mesa Networks purchased the NetEqualizer Data Shaper products for deployment throughout their wireless footprint—once installation is complete, they’ll have 45 units up and running. In addition, we announced that Premier Business Centers has purchased NetEqualizer to assure quality of service at their high-occupancy executive centers across the Western United States. According to Premier Business Centers, our plug-and-play traffic shaping products have reduced their bandwidth costs while lowering calls to customer service by over 90%. Here’s what their Director of IT had to say about their experience with NetEqualizer: Quality, reliable and consistently fast, high-speed T-1 Internet access is of vital importance to our customers," said Constantino Andaya, director of IT for Premier Business Centers. To assure our customers of quality service even during times of peak usage, we installed NetEqualizer. Installation took minutes and we haven't had to re-configure the box since the initial setup. Premier Business Centers lease office space in class A buildings across the United States and then sublease that space with value-added services, including high-speed Internet access, to professional tenants through its executive office centers. Premier Business Center operates over 34 properties in California, Texas and Washington State, with an average of 60 offices per location. The company has deployed the NetEqualizer in ten of its properties. Resellers APconnections is pleased to announce that Kansas-based A/F CommSupply will begin reselling the NetEqualizer product family immediately. A/F CommSupply provides quality wireless communications equipment to resellers and self-maintained end users in the LMR/SMR/ESMR, paging, cellular, broadcast, government, public safety, PCS/PCN, broadband wireless and related markets. For more information on A/F CommSupply, please visit their Website at http://www.afcommsupply.com/. Product Update We will have an automated turn key upgrade by mid November. To qualify for this version your purchase date must be no earlier than May 1 2004. Contact us about an upgrade fee if your 6 months has expired. Technical Feature Learn how NetEqualizer's connection limit feature prevents p2p connections from hurting your network. Peer-to-peer connections can hurt your network more than bandwidth loss. When peer-to-peer file sharing first became popular, the earliest versions such as Napster, operated by searching the Internet to find a host with the file requested. Once found, Napster would then initiate a single file transfer. More often than not, the sending host was slow, and the file transfer would take several hours. Next came p2p applications like Gnutella. These second generation peer-to-peer applications optimize speed by breaking the file into many pieces and then receiving each piece from a different source. This approach essentially creates many downloads (connections) where before there was just one. When multiple users running Gnutella download files simultaneously, the effect on the network can be overwhelming. A recent experiment with Bearshare demonstrated that downloading just a single file, resulted in over 150 connections. Routers and firewalls usually feel the effects of p2p applications long before there is a bandwidth issue. The overhead created by a 10-fold increase in connections on a network can render a firewall useless in just a few seconds if left unchecked. There are manual methods to monitor and lock down these connection storms, however they can be costly in terms of labor. In addition, connection storms can be difficult to detect and track. NetEqualizer's “connection limit” feature puts an end to connection congestion. When turned on, this feature dynamically “learns” of current connections on your network and will prevent any single host from opening more than a set amount. We typically recommend 20 connections. This feature is standard on all NetEqualizer models and is in use in some of our largest deployments. Connection Defined: A connection is defined as unique host and client conversation. A client receiving data from 100 hosts would create 100 connections on your network.