Xtera Communications’ (News - Alert) IP Networking Group has released its latest version of FlowOS for the AscenFlow family of IP Traffic Management and Shaping appliances.

FlowOS 3.4 and its companion, FlowReport 3.4, represent a high performing and feature-rich offering from Xtera, according to company officials.

In comparison to previous versions, FlowOS 3.4 recognizes hundreds of Layer 4 to Layer 7 protocols -- which is more than twice. Company officials said that it monitors and shapes traffic from numerous end-points, including IP or MAC addresses, authenticated users and URLs.

Additionally, specific protocol traffic can be shaped independently or in combination with end-points. Also, WAN-to-DMZ traffic can be treated differently than LAN-to-WAN or LAN-to-Intranet traffic.

Company officials said that any end points and services can be placed into Groups and Classes to ease policy creation and deployment. Moreover, regular protocol signature updates do not affect network traffic.

In addition, it also ensures continued monitoring and control of network traffic trends as applications, protocols and usage patterns evolve as a result of business decisions and external influences.

FlowOS 3.4 with FlowReport 3.4 provides summary reporting and in-depth, real-time and historical reporting thanks to its simple database query tools and user-friendly web-GUI interfaces.

Moreover FlowOS 3.4 allows complete control of traffic shaping, ensuring that mission-critical applications get the bandwidth they need while recreational traffic is minimized or eliminated, said company officials.

FlowOS 3.4 is available on the AscenFlow family of IP Traffic Managers. It supports data throughput from 10Mbit/s to over 3Gbit/s and up to 8 million simultaneous connections.

Company officials said that AscenFlow features transparent operation, hardware and software failure bypass, “hitless” configuration changes and optional redundant hardware for maximum network availability.

FlowOS 3.4, FlowReport 3.4 and the AscenFlow family of WAN Traffic Management appliances are available from a network of Xtera Channel Partners in over 40 countries.