Foursticks - Delivering Enhanced Quality of Service in Enterprise Networks

The Problem:

Foursticks NP Gateway brings enhanced Quality of Service and improved bandwidth efficiency to enterprise networks by enabling network administrators to control network resource allocation at a user and application level of granularity. This enables, for example, the prioritisation of mission critical application traffic over non-business traffic. The interactions between network protocols, quality of service management and user behaviour are complex at the best times and change significantly from one customer environment to the next. Foursticks needed the capability to model those complex interactions in order quantify the benefits of NP Gateway to clients while also evaluating the efficiency of their underlying implementation.

Solution:

We developed a network simulator that includes a variety of Quality of Service management implementations, including patented Foursticks algorithms. The simulator supports are wide range of network protocols, applications and user behaviour models and enables detailed investigation of the dynamic interaction of the NP Gateway and the underlying communications protocols. Foursticks can now quickly and efficiently model proposed deployment options for their customers and evaluate the efficiency of their underlying implementation. The simulator has led to quick identification of issues in existing deployments and to recommendations on addressing those issues. Further, we have been able to examine enhanced Quality of Service mechanisms and identify those providing the greatest benefits to Foursticks' clients.