Mistletoe Technologies
Mistletoe Technologies is the first company to create an intelligent Internet processor. With the flexibility of a general purpose processor, and the performance and economy of a dedicated ASIC, it is the ideal solution for applications requiring highly efficient and fast Layer 4 - 7 processing.
Read on to see how we are solving the challenges of the marketplace.
The IT Challenge
IT administrators are seeing rapid growth of faster networks, driven in large part by richer content and media. In addition to creating faster networks, IT administrators are responsible for building more intelligent networks to address a wide variety of issues:
| Internal and external security threats | Examples include the ever-increasing number of viruses, attacks, and intellectual property and data thefts. |
| Compliance and regulatory issues | Examples include Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Basel. |
| Employee efficiency | Companies are financially impacted by things like spam, and personal web-browsing. |
| Increased mobility | Anywhere / anytime access requests and wireless growth. |
| Content-aware processing and networking | Examples include billing; quality of service and latency issues for applications like VoIP and gaming; and monitoring of service level agreements. |
The Technical Challenge
These tasks usually require Layer 4-7 network processing in which a packet is opened up and its payload inspected and acted upon. This processing is difficult on networks running at 10 to 100 Megabit per second (Mbps) speeds, but as LAN speeds move to Gigabits per second (Gbps) and WAN networks deploy high-speed fiber technologies, the IT challenges called-out above either cannot be performed at all or can only be performed at great cost or by sacrificing performance and features.
The Mistletoe Technologies Solution
The Mistletoe Technologies team, comprised of networking and processor design experts, has solved these challenges by creating an intelligent Internet processor that is ideally suited for highly efficient Layer 4-7 processing of streaming data. Systems built with this architecture range in performance from 200 Mbps to 10+ Gbps, and offer a variety of applications including:
-Load balancing and WAN optimization for improved reliability and performance
-Powerful content-based processing for billing, quality of service and SLA management
Mistletoe Technologies For Security Appliances
Using this technology, Mistletoe Technologies has built the first security system-on-a-chip line of products that will enable network equipment manufacturers to rapidly provide complete high-performance security solutions to IT managers.
As an example of the technology's efficiency and performance, a complete 2 Gbps security firewall and VPN based on Mistletoe Technologies consumes less than 15 Watts, runs on a single low-cost ASIC, and is roughly the size of a deck of playing cards. Alternative architectures, in similarly performing systems, cost over $30,000, consume 250 Watts, require multiple server-class processors and various custom ASICs, and use hundreds of square inches of board space..
About Mistletoe Technologies
Located in Cupertino, California, Mistletoe Technologies was founded in December 2002 and has raised $25M from top tier VC firms Sevin Rosen Funds, Worldview Technology Partners and Incubic Venture Capital. The company's first products are shipping for revenue.
- Scott Barrett
President and CEO of freedom9
