Netli Scales Up

Palo Alto, Calif., startup Netli Inc. today announced two new services offered as part of its specialist network protocol (see Netli Offers New Services). It also announced four new customers.

The two services include NetliView and NetliContinuity. The former is a Web portal that provides information on the status of applications, while the latter allows firms to shift Web application traffic across sites.

At the same time as the company announced its new services, it also revealed that some big hitters are already using the company's flagship NetLightning service: Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL - message board), Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK - message board), Kimberly-Clark, and Thomson Financial. Although precise details on the nature of the deals have yet to be released, boosting application performance via the data center was obviously key.

"Typically, in each of these areas, we're dealing with one centralized data center," says Willie Tejada, vice president of marketing at Netli.

Netli claims to deliver LAN-like response time over a global network. So, how does it do all this?

NetLightning uses specialized protocols to get around some of the inefficiencies of using TCP and HTTP in wide-area Internet transfers. Although NetLightning replaces the TCP and HTTP layers, it still uses the Internet's standard IP transport. This, according to Netli, enables geographically dispersed end users to enjoy the same application performance as local users.

So where does Netli fit in amongst the plethora of services that are currently on offer to data center managers? Tejada believes that his company's technology could complement the hosting services currently offered by Savvis Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: SVVS - message board). "We would see Savvis as a potential partner," he says.

Savvis, for its part, appears eager to branch out and form new alliances at the moment. The company has more than doubled its size following its successful bid for Cable & Wireless plc's (NYSE: CWP - message board) U.S. assets earlier this year (see Savvis Bulks Up).

Last month, for example, Savvis announced a new virtualized services platform for utility computing, which it says can slash 50 percent off the cost of traditional outsourcing (see Savvis Gets Virtual).

Is Savvis as keen on Netli as Netli is on Savvis? Hard to tell. Savvis was unavailable for comment.

Ñ James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum