ApplianSys

Last updated

ApplianSys Ltd
Type Limited company
Industry Technology
Founded2000
Headquarters Coventry, United Kingdom
Key people
Mike Clark, CEO
Products Proxy server, Web cache, DNS server, DHCP server, IPAM, WAN optimization, Content filtering, Gateway
Website www.appliansys.com

ApplianSys, founded in 2000, is a privately held venture capital-backed technology company based in Coventry, United Kingdom. [1] It designs, builds and markets Internet server appliances [2] [3] that are deployed in more than 150 countries. [4] Forrester Research have listed ApplianSys as being a key vendor in the worldwide IP Address Management market, with its DNS engine used in a third of all GPRS networks. [5]

Contents

Products

ApplianSys' portfolio of appliances include more than 20 models [6] split across a range including DNSBOX (DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management), CACHEBOX (Web cache, Proxy Server, WAN Optimization and Content Filtering) and EDUGATEBOX (Gateway (telecommunications) appliance for schools that are connecting to the internet for the first time).

DNSBOX

The DNSBOX range was launched in 2001. It is divided into 4 series: [7]

Management appliances use a combination of open source and proprietary software, developed by ApplianSys and Nixu. [8]

According to IDC's 2007 IPAM report the average DNSBOX customer manages 15,000 IP addresses. [9]

CACHEbox

CACHEBOX230 Server Appliance Cachebox200.png
CACHEBOX230 Server Appliance

CACHEBOX is a dedicated web caching proxy appliance with software editions targeted at Education, SME, Corporate/Governmental and ISP markets. Five models provide different performance levels:

CACHEBOX's caching engine employs code from the Squid project. [10]

Customer types include:

In 2005 it launched the Becta approved Protex content filtering service in collaboration with the East of England Broadband Network, [11] [12] who represent more than 2800 schools across 10 authorities. In 2006, it acquired the assets and customer base of its rival Freedom2. [13] It has since expanded activity into the North American schools market and was the caching device most requested by US schools for 2015 E-rate funding. [14]

Operating system

ApplianSys maintains its own hardened Linux operating system that has been developed from the ground up with appliance use in mind. All products make use of industrial grade CFast that in most cases stores both the OS and configuration files, minimising or removing reliance on non solid state storage for reasons of both performance and reliability. [15]

After initial deployment using a VGA or serial console, all configuration of ApplianSys products is performed via a secure web interface. [16]

Related Research Articles

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the associated entities. Most prominently, it translates readily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols. The Domain Name System has been an essential component of the functionality of the Internet since 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IPv6</span> Version 6 of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, and was intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, which subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proxy server</span> Computer server that makes and receives requests on behalf of a user

In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource. It improves privacy, security, and performance in the process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squid (software)</span> Caching and forwarding HTTP web proxy

Squid is a caching and forwarding HTTP proxy. It has a wide variety of uses, including speeding up a web server by caching repeated requests, caching World Wide Web (WWW), Domain Name System (DNS), and other lookups for a group of people sharing network resources, and aiding security by filtering traffic. Although used for mainly HTTP and File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Squid includes limited support for several other protocols including Internet Gopher, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). Squid does not support the SOCKS protocol, unlike Privoxy, with which Squid can be used in order to provide SOCKS support.

Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content delivery network</span> Layer in the internet ecosystem addressing bottlenecks

A content delivery network, or content distribution network (CDN), is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end users. CDNs came into existence in the late 1990s as a means for alleviating the performance bottlenecks of the Internet as the Internet was starting to become a mission-critical medium for people and enterprises. Since then, CDNs have grown to serve a large portion of the Internet content today, including web objects, downloadable objects, applications, live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, and social media sites.

In computer networks, rate limiting is used to control the rate of requests sent or received by a network interface controller. It can be used to prevent DoS attacks and limit web scraping.

DNS spoofing, also referred to as DNS cache poisoning, is a form of computer security hacking in which corrupt Domain Name System data is introduced into the DNS resolver's cache, causing the name server to return an incorrect result record, e.g. an IP address. This results in traffic being diverted to any computer that the attacker chooses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reverse proxy</span> Type of proxy server

In computer networks, a reverse proxy is an application that sits in front of back-end applications and forwards client requests to those applications. Reverse proxies help increase scalability, performance, resilience and security. The resources returned to the client appear as if they originated from the web server itself.

A web accelerator is a proxy server that reduces website access time. They can be a self-contained hardware appliance or installable software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway</span>

Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server, is a discontinued network router, firewall, antivirus program, VPN server and web cache from Microsoft Corporation. It ran on Windows Server and works by inspecting all network traffic that passes through it.

IP address management (IPAM) is a methodology implemented in computer software for planning and managing the assignment and use of IP addresses and closely related resources of a computer network. It does not typically provide Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) services, but manages information for these components. Additional functionality, such as controlling reservations in DHCP and other data aggregation and reporting capabilities, is also common. Data tracked by an IPAM system may include information such as IP addresses in use, and the associated devices and users. Centralized collection of this information may support troubleshooting and abuse investigations.

This article presents a comparison of the features, platform support, and packaging of many independent implementations of Domain Name System (DNS) name server software.

A proxy auto-config (PAC) file defines how web browsers and other user agents can automatically choose the appropriate proxy server for fetching a given URL.

GeoDNS is a patch for BIND DNS server software, to allow geographical split horizon, based on MaxMind's geoip (commercial) or geolite (free) databases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenDNS</span> Domain name system provided by Cisco using closed-source software

OpenDNS is an American company providing Domain Name System (DNS) resolution services—with features such as phishing protection, optional content filtering, and DNS lookup in its DNS servers—and a cloud computing security product suite, Umbrella, designed to protect enterprise customers from malware, botnets, phishing, and targeted online attacks. The OpenDNS Global Network processes an estimated 100 billion DNS queries daily from 85 million users through 25 data centers worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">X-Forwarded-For</span> HTTP header field

The X-Forwarded-For (XFF) HTTP header field is a common method for identifying the originating IP address of a client connecting to a web server through an HTTP proxy or load balancer.

DNS hijacking, DNS poisoning, or DNS redirection is the practice of subverting the resolution of Domain Name System (DNS) queries. This can be achieved by malware that overrides a computer's TCP/IP configuration to point at a rogue DNS server under the control of an attacker, or through modifying the behaviour of a trusted DNS server so that it does not comply with internet standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infoblox</span> American technology company

Infoblox, is a privately held IT automation and security company based in California's Silicon Valley. The company focuses on managing and identifying devices connected to networks—specifically for the Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and IP address management. According to Gartner, Infoblox held a 49.9% market share of the $533 million enterprise DDI market in 2015. In June 2016, market research company IDC reported that Infoblox held a sizeable market share in DNS, DHCP, and IP address management.

DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol for performing remote Domain Name System (DNS) resolution via the HTTPS protocol. A goal of the method is to increase user privacy and security by preventing eavesdropping and manipulation of DNS data by man-in-the-middle attacks by using the HTTPS protocol to encrypt the data between the DoH client and the DoH-based DNS resolver. By March 2018, Google and the Mozilla Foundation had started testing versions of DNS over HTTPS. In February 2020, Firefox switched to DNS over HTTPS by default for users in the United States.

References

  1. "ApplianSys Legal Page" . Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  2. The Morgan Stanley and d&g European Technology Atlas 2005. d&g hi-tech information Ltd. Page 176. ISBN   965-90293-5-7
  3. "Company Snapshot: ApplianSys". Business Week. Archived from the original on 8 September 2012. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  4. "ApplianSys: The server appliance specialist". ApplianSys. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  5. Mendel, Thomas (18 June 2004). "IP Address Management" (PDF). Forrester Research. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 June 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  6. "ApplianSys Case Study" (PDF). Capital Fund. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  7. "DNSbox Range Overview". ApplianSys. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  8. "Do It Yourself DNS". Network Computing. 3 April 2003. Archived from the original on 9 June 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  9. Rainge, Elisabeth (2007). "Worldwide IPAM 2007 Forecast" (PDF). IDC. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  10. "Squid Based Products". squid-cache.org. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  11. "Case Study: Cable&Wireless Helps E2BN Deliver Fast, Secure Web Access to Local Authorities & Schools". Cable & Wireless. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  12. "ZDnet Whitepaper" . Retrieved 5 May 2009.[ dead link ]
  13. "ApplianSys Acquires Freedom2 Assets" . Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  14. "Caching on E-rate for faster web access". ApplianSys. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
  15. "Rock Solid Appliances". ApplianSys. Archived from the original on 8 June 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
  16. "Lucent edges MetaInfo in IP address management test". Network World. 5 September 2005. Archived from the original on 9 June 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.