XipLink
Software Embedded Optimization

The growing demand for “always-on” connectivity to the internet and other information repositories has given birth to a substantial technical challenge, which can only be tackled through wireless solutions. Wireless networks can deliver connectivity and lead to faster transfer of information within businesses while allowing the users to communicate in a manner that supports mobility. However, the wireless spectrum to support the ever-increasing bandwidth demand is a finite resource. Thus, networks become over-subscribed, resulting in poor performance and the inability to deliver mission-critical applications. To help solve these issues, XipLink has developed a suite of software tools for WAN acceleration, optimization, and congestion management. Founded in 2007, XipLink provides the industry’s most advanced bandwidth optimization solutions for use on VSAT, Cellular, Mobile Satellite Services (MSS), and terrestrial wireless networks. XipLink specializes in “stressed” WAN connections for dynamic wireless links that experience high latency, asymmetric connections, and high bit error rates across any wireless or mobile communication networks. “Our unique value proposition has always been optimizing stressed network connections over satellite, inconsistent cellular or dirty wireline connections,” says Jack Waters, CEO of XipLink.

XipLink’s flagship product, XipLink Optimization Software (XipOS), is packaged with intelligent routing, basic firewall, and QoS capabilities in addition to core TCP acceleration and optimization modules. XipOS delivers various techniques to optimize web browsing, providing both faster browsing and capacity savings, and a fully integrated class-based weighted fair queuing QoS engine to increase overall effectiveness. To date, XipLink has primarily sold their software via appliances, called the XA product line, combining the XipOS software with prepackaged hardware for ease of use. XipLink’s XV product line, on the other hand, is functionally equivalent to the XA’s using virtual machine distributions and the XipOS software running on popular hypervisors, allowing integrators to select their hardware platform of choice. This makes the XV solution an ideal candidate for deployments into cloud or blade architectures, as well as for embedding onto third party hardware platforms for deployments in specific vertical markets. The XV solution, deployed in a hub environment, allows for scalability to address any size network.

The most recently announced version of XipOS software allows configuration via software-defined networks, with the WAN optimization virtualized as a network function. “As we move into the new era of software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WAN), combining clear and stressed networks in a hybrid solution, XipLink has a brilliant solution that evolves from the WAN optimization field into the SD-WAN space,” adds Waters.

In a hybrid networking scenario, XipLink enables more efficient use of overall network capacity. Links and end-to-end services are continuously monitored, with capacity intelligently managed by instantaneously moving sessions between links, without interruption or operator intervention, as conditions change. The Link Bonding and Balancing feature combines the capacity of available connections on a session (flow) or packet-by-packet basis to improve throughput while enabling session persistence regardless of path utilized. A related set of features in XipOS, several highly tuned congestion control algorithms, delivers maximum capacity for wireless links in various configurations such as wireline, mobile, terrestrial wireless, and others. These are key differentiating factors that have led XipLink to earn the trusted label partner for large and complex networks at companies like AT&T, Telefonica, Verizon, SpeedCast, Carnival Cruise Lines, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

XipLink’s wireless link optimization solutions continue to build a strong market presence with successful testing and implementation for one of its cruise line clients. With limited bandwidth availability, passengers on the cruise ship were having a hard time accessing the internet at consistent and expected levels of performance. XipLink’s solution was introduced into the client’s service network, resulting in considerable positive impact from customer surveys and dramatically higher “take rate” of the service.

Forging ahead, XipLink is focusing on creating a name for itself in the hybrid networking space after having established itself as a key player in the WAN optimization field. XipLink plans to expand into the bonded cellular data market, aggregating 2-4 mobile connections together into one device while applying its WAN optimization features to provide higher quality and more deterministic connection for the end-user.