Australian network performance specialist Foursticks has signed a national reseller agreement with leading technology solutions provider Alphawest, which will see Foursticks’ NP Gateway software implemented on Sun LX50 servers.

Alphawest has leveraged strategic alliances with leading vendors, such as long-time partner Sun Microsystems, to join forces with Foursticks, a Sun Developer Connection partner.

The first customer under the new agreement is South Australia’s Department of Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs, with other pilots in place among Alphawest’s large corporate and government client base.

Alphawest’s General Manager – South Australia Alan Thomas said that Foursticks offered his existing and future customers a differentiator and a means to add value.

“Times are tight – when you can show IT managers something that can save real, hard dollars, you’ve got their attention,” Mr Thomas said.

“Our customers will use Foursticks’ NP Gateway to reduce their telecommunications annuity costs by delivering guaranteed service levels to mission critical applications and key users.”

Mr Thomas said the agreement would extend the depth of its technology solutions offerings into an area that was previously dominated by first-generation, hardware-based solutions.

“We have benchmarked Foursticks’ product against its competitor’s and found NP leads in several key areas,” Mr Thomas said. “NP is software that provides flexible implementation and a choice of hardware platforms.

“The software is scalable on the existing platform, eliminating the need to upgrade or buy a new appliance, a competitive advantage. This provides significant cost advantages, especially when you’re talking about high bandwidth links.”

In an enterprise environment, NP Gateway sits between the router and the LAN, WAN or Internet, monitoring and controlling bandwidth use. The product can be configured by managers without specialised network skills to prioritize access to the users or applications that are mission critical to the business, while eliminating zero-value usage such as unsanctioned video downloads – all in real time.

Alphawest will distribute Foursticks NP Gateway Australia-wide to major corporates and government customers as part of its portfolio of integrated and converged solutions.

Foursticks Director Strategic Alliances Byron Riessen said Foursticks and Alphawest faced a bright future, with the demand for network performance solutions increasing rapidly.

“The reality is that the IP network is a competitive environment, where key applications are frequently swamped by uncontrolled use,” Mr Riessen said.

“Foursticks will allow Alphawest to extend its managed services portfolio to include application-specific offerings that are becoming critical to enterprises.”

Sun’s Director of Linux Products Duncan Bennet welcomed the partnership. “Foursticks’ NP suite has been developed on the Linux platform, so philosophically we share the belief that open systems provide the maximum customer benefit.

“We look forward to enabling Sun servers with a proven network performance solution for the edge computing marketplace. Alphawest is one of our leading partners in Australia, so all round this is good news for Sun.”