If network architects wanted to play doctor they would have gone to medical school. Still, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see they've got a performance problem—one that could reach epidemic proportions. That aging population of Cisco routers they count on to keep packets in circulation can't keep pace with LAN switching, fast Ethernet, and (don't even suggest it) gigabit Ethernet. The prognosis: A router-based bottleneck that could cripple the throughput of revenue-generating corporate apps. Six vendors, Cisco included, say they've got the cure: so-called router accelerators—sedicated hardware that offloads tasks from the old and tired router software. Early adopters like what they see. "We just plugged it in and the upgrade was complete," says Don Tarrodaychik, manager of systems and networks at VSIS Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), a semiconductor design company using the RA 7000 from Flowwise Networks Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) to rejuvenate its Cisco 7500s.
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