Performing XML-aware content inspection is a difficult task. Network devices and application servers are already overloaded handling the basic TCP/IP and HTTP based functions that they were built for. Processing and inspecting XML on the network is a compute-intensive, multistep task. Each step consumes processing power and time, resulting in a challenging environment, especially if the business requires a solution that introduces no additional latency. Clearly, companies require a new class of solution in order to meet the increasing demand to understand, process, and manage XML and Web Services traffic on the network.XML proxies and related technologies offer an evolutionary advancement from current IP-based network processing techniques by providing the ability to inspect network traffic at the content-level. Increasingly, network administrators will be expected to provide capabilities for securing, routing, managing, and transforming XML content with high throughput and low latency. Doing so, however, requires a new set of capabilities that provide rich application functionality without sacrificing performance.
