SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Saisei today announced Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box, a simplified version of its FlowCommand Network Performance Enforcement (NPE) software, that is specifically targeted at solving the network issues relating to the pending fair Internet usage mandate stemming from recent US FCC recommendations as well as growing enterprise network congestion. It provides a powerful new solution for any enterprise or service provider network where fair usage of network bandwidth is critical, such as guaranteeing that each hotel room, airplane seat, or university dorm room has equal access to the local Wi-Fi network regardless of how many users are on the network or what applications they are running.

Saisei’s Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box comes preconfigured with Saisei’s unique “Host Equalization” enabled on start up. Using Host Equalization in-line, the Saisei solution automatically identifies, monitors and controls every single flow on a critical broadband link – up to millions of concurrent data, voice and video sessions – in real time without any impact on network performance.

Host Equalization gives every host – user – on a link exactly the same percentage of the available bandwidth that every other user has, regardless of what application(s) they may be running. Aggressive applications, including peer-to-peer apps like BitTorrent, high volumes of YouTube traffic or file transfers, that used to grab huge percentages of link bandwidth and crash other users, will now get the same percentage of a link’s bandwidth as every other user on the network.

Like FlowCommand, Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box offers Saisei’s unique “No Flow Left Behind” guarantee. Every user session – video, VoIP call or other application – will successfully transit a Saisei-managed link and will never stall or time out again. For example, this makes the solution ideal for creating large VoIP call centers where call quality can now be fully protected from surges in network traffic and even from some DDoS attacks. This breakthrough capability is made possible by Saisei’s flow engine patents that both eliminate queuing and random packet drops and allow Saisei-controlled broadband links to run at almost 100% utilization without any signs of congestion being seen by end users.

With Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box, the old requirement for blocking certain types of traffic is now eliminated. Also, throttling is no longer necessary due to the increased available bandwidth in the existing links combined with the real-time discrete control of every session on the network. In addition, transparency and compliance is guaranteed with comprehensive real-time, in-line analytics – and historical reporting – on more than 40 L2-L7 metrics, including user, application, geo-location and quality of experience.

“In large part, the entire debate about ‘net neutrality’ came about because traditional networking products were neither fast enough nor intelligent enough to handle surges in the volume of Internet traffic on critical links without randomly throwing data away and crashing myriad users in the process,” said Jeff Paine, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Saisei. “This is how all networks operate today, but that situation has now changed with the rise of Network Performance Enforcement solutions like Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box that can surgically examine and control millions of concurrent connections and make sure that no individual user can ever degrade the experience of another. Period. In other words, NPE automatically creates a completely level playing field.”

Saisei’s unique, patented technology works by allocating a guaranteed bit rate to each discrete flow for each user and actively manages the target rates for these flows and users independently in a very IP friendly manner. This enables customers to run their network peak loads at very high levels of efficiency – typically 95%+ – thus completely eliminating the congestion symptoms that plague other so-called “fair usage” usage product offerings.

Solution Details, Deployment, and Pricing Options
Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box can be deployed either as a VM under Hypervisor – VMware or KVM – control or, for customers preferring a traditional hardware solution, on Saisei-certified bare-metal x86 server cores as a bump-in-the-wire on routed IP links. Currently, links up to 10G are supported, with higher bandwidth solutions now under development. Real-time analytics based on 40+ Layer 2 to Layer 7 metrics along with complete flow data history are also included for compliance and troubleshooting. Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box is a single-level-of-service solution. Customers wishing to deploy multiple tiers of guaranteed service, such as traditional Silver/Gold/Platinum services or premium video and VoIP services where all “best-effort” traffic is also protected, will need to upgrade to the full FlowCommand product.

Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box comes with an easy-to-use REST API for integration with other operational systems and is also fully integrated with OpenStack for NFV deployments.

Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box can be purchased immediately as a recurring software license that is available either as an “aggregate bandwidth” license or on a per-user license, depending on deployment options.

Saisei