TrafficPilot™

A typical Equiinet overlay network involves a central smart cache device managing web, file and Internet traffic to each branch location. Using the company's proprietary Smart Caching Protocol™, it gives flexible and dynamic control over the bandwidth and routing of each of these types of traffic. Web pages and files can be 'pushed' out to all branches in response to a request from one branch or in anticipation of need. TrafficPilot makes intelligent use of the communications medium to broadcast information when that would be advantageous.

The branch-based TrafficPilot™ Plus looks like a file-server, web-server, web-proxy and email-server sitting on the branch Local Area Network. When users request web pages that aren't already cached locally, TrafficPilot™ Plus communicates with the head office smart cache - named TrafficPilot™ Enterprise - to obtain the pages. TrafficPilot Enterprise can choose whether to reply to a request individually or whether the same reply may be helpful to other branches. If the communication medium supports broadcast, it will take advantage of that feature to populate all the branch caches simultaneously. The pages or files can then be served to PCs in any branch as though they had been held locally all along.

The head office TrafficPilot™ Enterprise can also anticipate web and file requests and 'push' those items out even before anyone asks for them. This can be configured to happen on a timed basis or only when a content change is made, or both. The bandwidth used can be regulated in a very flexible way based on the nature of the traffic: be it web or file, uni-cast or broadcast, request or response, if central push, scheduled or the result of change.