Addition of HTTP/Web Streaming to Middleware Platform Revolutionizes Real-Time Internet Data Streaming

OTTAWA, April 12, 2011 – Solace Systems, the leading provider of messaging middleware appliances, has extended its hardware-based Unified Messaging Platform with the ability to stream real-time data over the internet at up to three times the message rate and 1/100th the latency of competing software-based streaming solutions.

This new feature, called Solace Web Messaging, lets companies easily deploy applications that give users a rich, continuously-updated view of real-time information via desktop and mobile devices. For example, to offer web-based single dealer platforms, investment banks need to aggregate real-time information from a range of sources and push it to traders as part of a rich, contextual and continuously updated dashboard.

Web developers have embraced rich internet applications (RIAs) built with technologies such as HTML5, Javascript, Silverlight and Flash to offer a full user experience in any web browser. They also use so-called “Comet” technologies as well as the emergent WebSocket standard to push continuous streams of data to web and mobile applications. For companies looking to leverage such technologies to deploy rich internet applications, Solace offers many advantages over today’s data streaming tools including:

  • Better performance: While latency on the internet depends on factors beyond the control of organizations deploying RIAs, competitive advantage can be gained by reducing latency within the managed infrastructure. Solace provides latency in the tens of microseconds and the ability to fanout millions of messages per second from a single appliance. For example, at 9, 000 client connections and 900, 000 messages per second throughput, Solace provides an average latency of 37 microseconds and just 44 microseconds at the 99.9th percentile. Full test results are available in this whitepaper.
  • RIA messaging semantics: Real-time data applications can be written with full publish/subscribe or request/reply messaging semantics, rather than simple byte pipes. This greatly simplifies development time for streaming of data to real-time apps. This also makes it possible to route data “peer to peer” between end users without the extra hops of flowing messages into and out of the datacenter to be routed by an internal message bus.
  • Easier development, deployment and operation: Having a single infrastructure for information distribution inside the firewall and over the web eliminates the complexity and cost associated with integrating multiple platforms, coding applications to a variety of APIs, and keeping several discrete environments running at peak efficiency.

“Leveraging its wealth of low-latency enterprise experience, Solace presents a revolutionary shift in pushing real-time data over the internet, ” said Matt Davey, CTO at Lab49, a technology consulting firm that builds advanced solutions for the financial services industry. “Having early access to this technology, Lab49 has demonstrated that hardware-enabled web messaging can be harnessed by the financial industry’s high performance pricing and dealing systems, such as single dealer platforms.”

Solace Web Messaging has been available in early release with early adopters and partners since January. The general availability (GA) release is scheduled for spring 2011.

“The growth of the internet and proliferation of mobile devices and advanced browsing technologies has driven demand for more capable real-time channels between systems and end users, ” said Shawn McAllister, CTO at Solace Systems. “Our new Web Messaging functionality gives companies a competitive advantage by extending their real-time systems over the internet without deploying a dedicated streaming platform, and by offering unprecedented throughput and latency.”