Tarari, Inc., the award-winning acceleration company and the first company to design and build core XML functions into silicon, announced today its XML Silicon roadmap to enable OEMs, ISVs, VARs, Fortune 500 corporations as well as small-to-medium enterprises to take advantage of XML hardware acceleration. The roadmap advances Tarari's XML Silicon and extends the current generation of PCI boards -- in use by customers today -- to include dedicated ASICs as well as other form factors and inter-connects, including PCI-X, PMC and Compact PCI boards. "More and more XML-aware devices are being incorporated into the network infrastructure," said Randy Smerik, president & CEO, Tarari, Inc. "Our XML Silicon roadmap for Tarari Content Processors further stimulates the development of whole new range of application and content aware network switches/routers, Application and XML Firewalls, XML Acceleration and Management appliances, high-performance Web Services servers, high-density blade servers, XML load balancers, content-aware Storage Area Networks (SANs), and real-time telecommunications billing solutions so that our customers can get to gigabit-throughput. All they need to do is to incorporate Tarari's snap-in solution to their existing network and server architectures and they'll gain the acceleration exactly where it's needed." Tarari is the Intel spinout from the division that originally designed and built the world's first XML Accelerator, which won Overall Best of Show at NetWorld+Interop in May of 2000. Succeeding generations of XML acceleration products have included the first XML load balancer and the first XML switch. Based on this experience, in 2003 Tarari delivered to its customers the industry's first XML Content Processor, which implements XML functions in silicon. Tarari will introduce its latest XML Silicon product, the Tarari RAX Content Processor, at NetWorld+Interop being held in Las Vegas May 9-14, 2004. Tarari Content Processors do the heavy lifting and reduce processor-draining tasks to near-zero CPU time by moving these tasks away from compute-bound, general-purpose processors into specialized silicon. Tarari's XML Silicon allows XML and Web Services to be deployed in high transaction rate environments thanks to its Simultaneous XPath acceleration -- XPath is a W3C standard which is fast becoming the most popular way to decode and route XML documents. XML Performance -- Real Pain that needs to be solved today Many companies that have embarked on XML and Web Services projects have already experienced severe performance problems. Customers report that processing complex XML messages can take up to 20 seconds per message and that their systems hit a performance ceiling at a few messages per second, whereas their design specifications call for sub-second response times and hundreds or even thousands of messages per second. To ensure that Web Services and XML-based systems continue to gain traction and acceptance on a broad scale, greater throughput and speed is critical. Many Tarari customers have already benefited from the sheer performance gains achieved by using Tarari Content Processors. The company's XML technology allows them to use industry-standard components and operating systems to create powerful high-performance systems. Tarari's XML Silicon Roadmap Tarari's team has years of experience with high speed XML processing, and that is what drove Tarari to create the world's first commercial XML Silicon that is being used by initial customers today. In order to ensure that the XML acceleration can truly be "snapped" into networking and server systems, a robust set of products based on a well designed architectural foundation is essential. Tarari's XML Content Processors and XML Silicon roadmap achieves that objective. Here are some of the key elements of that Roadmap: -- Industry-standard boards -- Tarari delivers today its XML Content Processor that is a unique combination of a Content Processing Controller and two dynamically programmable Content Processing Engines. This architecture has been designed to reach the highest performance levels without sacrificing flexibility. It is currently packaged in a PCI form factor which allows it to integrate easily in networking, appliance and server systems. Within the XML Silicon roadmap, other board-level packaging options are targeted including Blades, Compact PCI, and motherboards. -- ASICs -- While a PCI or other board-level approach can significantly reduce the integration time to incorporate XML Acceleration into target systems, there are other environments where a single ASIC is needed. In fact, the Tarari XML Acceleration ASIC is a key element of its XML Silicon roadmap. This second generation silicon is designed for OEMs who require XML Acceleration and need to include it in the custom systems they are building. A key benefit of Tarari's XML Acceleration ASIC is the wide variety of systems it can support from high-end switches for an enterprise data center to dedicated entry-level devices for small office environments. -- Host-Interconnects -- Tarari's XML Content Processor supports the popular PCI host-interconnect today. PCI provides a standard slot that allows the Tarari's XML Content Processors to physically connect with the system being accelerated. To ensure Tarari customers can easily integrate XML Acceleration, Tarari's roadmap continues to extend the host-interconnect options to include such offerings as PCI-X and PCI Express. -- Communication Silicon Interconnects -- More and more network traffic is now comprised of XML formatted messages, and there is a real demand to understand and process those messages in what's called "inline mode." Inline Mode means that the communication silicon interfaces directly with the XML Content Processor without the need for the message to be processed by a general purpose CPU first. Tarari XML Silicon roadmap fully supports Inline Mode by offering the high-speed interconnects needed to work natively and directly with packet-level communication silicon. -- Integrated Security -- Tarari's XML Content Processors also include a rich set of Security capabilities fully integrated today in its silicon. These functions include silicon acceleration of RSA public key, bulk encryption/decryption with 3DES/DES, message digests with SHA-1, and true Random Number Generation. Tarari's XML Silicon roadmap extends these capabilities further as standards such as WS-Security are deployed. Tarari's real-world customer experience has proven that "integrated security" is critical, and Tarari is unique in how it has developed these capabilities natively within its offering without the need for third-party "crypto silicon" to be purchased.