IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances is a family of pre-built, pre-configured rack-mountable network devices (

XML appliance An XML appliance is a special-purpose network device used to secure, manage and mediate XML traffic. They are most popularly implemented in service-oriented architectures (SOA) to control XML-based web services traffic, and increasingly in clou ...

s) that can help accelerate

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

and Web Services deployments while extending SOA infrastructure. Originally these devices were created by DataPower Technology Inc., which was acquired by IBM in October 2005.Press release about IBM's acquisition of DataPower Technology Inc.
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WebSphere IBM WebSphere refers to a brand of proprietary computer software products in the genre of enterprise software known as "application and integration middleware". These software products are used by end-users to create and integrate applications wi ...

family consists of rack-mountable network appliances, blade appliances, appliances that rack inside a

z/OS z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes, introduced by IBM in October 2000. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn was preceded by a string of MVS versions.Starting with the earliest: * O ...

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

, and virtual appliances.

Appliance list

Based on Hardware Model 9235

* WebSphere DataPower Caching Appliance XC10 * WebSphere DataPower XML Accelerator XA35 * WebSphere DataPower Security Appliance XS40 * WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 * WebSphere DataPower B2B Appliance XB60 * WebSphere DataPower Messaging Appliance XM70 This hardware model is a 1U rack mountable appliance that has 4 1Gb ethernet connections.

Based on Hardware Model 7198

WebSphere DataPower Service Gateway XG45
This model is a 1U rack mountable appliance that has 4 1Gb ethernet connections and 2 10Gb ethernet connections.

Based on Hardware Model 7199

WebSphere DataPower Caching Appliance XC10 V2

WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI52

WebSphere DataPower B2B Appliance XB62

WebSphere DataPower Edge Appliance XE82
This model is a 2U rack mountable appliance that has 8 1Gb ethernet connections and 2 10Gb ethernet connections.

Based on Hardware Model 8436

IBM DataPower Gateway
This model is a 2U rack mountable appliance that has 8 1Gb ethernet connections and 2 10Gb ethernet connections.

Technical specifications

DataPower Appliances contain many hardware components, including

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...

-based IPS, custom

encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

drives, and (optional) Hardware Security Modules. DataPower Appliances operate a single digitally signed

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...

containing a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

-based operating system and application stack. Its firmware runs on a flash storage device. IBM updates the firmware image every 10–20 weeks. Users cannot run third-party applications on DataPower as they would need a traditional server and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. Instead of a traditional

filesystem In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

, it runs with a collection of isolated virtual file systems called 'Application Domains'. As a result, it can appear to its client connections to be any type of

network file system Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems (Sun) in 1984, allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a computer network much like local storage is accessed. NFS, like ...

with any type of folders and links. DataPower firmware is mostly used to perform electronic messaging functions, like transformation and routing of messages as an enterprise service bus or to protect web services interfaces and the architecture behind them. It helps to integrate any two applications by considering them as services, and is platform and language independent.

Competitors in market

References

External links

IBM WebSphere DataPower Home page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibm Websphere Datapower Soa Appliances IBM WebSphere, DataPower SOA Appliances WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances Networking hardware