The delivery of information and interactive services over the internet has grown far beyond the realm of online bookstores and email apps. In both the consumer and enterprise spaces, client-side software is quickly giving way to applications/services that are hosted in the cloud and delivered over the internet via web browsers and mobile apps.

The ability to immediately and cost-effectively offer services to anybody connected to the internet, whether at their desk or on the go, hasn’t just helped companies better connect with clients, it’s opened entirely new market opportunities and service models.

Here are a few of the areas in which this trend is having the most impact:

• Capital markets (streaming market data, self-service trading, single dealer platforms)
• Cloud Applications/Services (spreadsheets, storage, archival)
• E-Commerce (real-time auctions, social buying services)
• Gaming and Gambling (e.g. MMORPGs, online poker, sports betting)

Providing such services is about more than just serving up interfaces to users, though—it entails the need for sophisticated data distribution infrastructure – to connect back-end applications and data sources, synchronize systems across datacenters, and stream real-time data to clients over unpredictable internet and mobile networks.

Solace’s Solution

Solace’s high-performance messaging solution efficiently distributes large volumes of real-time data across over LANs, WANs and the internet.

• Processing/Delivery of Transactions: Whether a service lets people sell stock, store documents or bet on their favorite sport, service providers need to guarantee the delivery of instructions and commitments.
  Solace’s guaranteed messaging solution ensures the fast, failsafe delivery of information to the back-office systems that need to execute, settle and archive transactions.
• Internet Data Streaming: Early internet-accessible services featured static interfaces that users had to refresh to get the latest data, but new technologies like Flex, Silverlight, HTML5 and COMET enable rich internet applications (RIAs) that are as real-time and slick as client-side desktop apps.
  Solace can stream real-time data to RIAs with the same API used for internal messaging, making it easy to offer users a rich user experience and real-time interactivity without the hassle of client-side software.
• Global Synchronization: The success of many online services hinges on how many people can simultaneously access and act on a given opportunity to bid, bet, play or trade. This means companies must synchronize geographically distributed information in real-time over wide area networks with much less bandwidth and higher latency than local area networks within datacenters.
  Solace enables the efficient high-speed routing of information over WANs with intelligent routing protocols, parallel connections and automatic in-hardware compression.
• Bursty Traffic Handling: Volatlity is a common thread across many of the most prominent interactive services. Capital markets, auctions, online games, and sports betting all feature frequent and unpredictable rushes of activity brought upon by changing market conditions, competitive bidding, breaking news, etc. Solace’s high-capacity appliances utilize a hardware-based datapath that maintains performance characteristics much better than software.