Recently, Varnish Software and Intel announced a major step forward for streaming (and content) delivery, reaching almost 400 Gbps on off-the-shelf hardware. The Supermicro server was powered by 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, running a new NUMA-aware version of Varnish Enterprise. Our performance benchmarks were featured in a demo at Mobile World Congress, available here.

Reaching almost 400 Gbps on a standard server is likely a new record for standard software, which may have a disruptive impact on existing hardware and software technologies that sometimes can only deliver a tenth of this capacity.

Being the fastest and most performant is in the DNA of Varnish Software, and our core engineers are obsessed with breaking boundaries like this (expect them to reach even higher). Working with amazing partners like Intel to achieve benchmarks like this is very exciting for us, but there is also an important reason behind it.

2020 will be a year of new technologies and global challenges that demand innovative solutions. The introduction of 5G and the maturation of edge computing will mean significant changes to the way the world sends and receives data. While they could unlock vital new avenues for content delivery, automation, and intelligence, their implementation needs careful thought to ensure internal systems are capable of handling the increased demand that these technologies enable. More data traveling through a complex web of interconnected devices and infrastructure means increased energy use by data centers, which usually means more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Expect data’s hidden carbon footprint to be atop the environmental agenda.

It’s exciting times, and there are quite a few new things going on here at Varnish Software! We have been thinking about how to better serve our customers and the needs of the market, which has led us to create - and soon release - a new set of offerings, which the Varnish team has been working on for quite some time. 

Our CEO, Lars Larsson, recently contributed an article to Internet of Business, about APIs, essentially the glue that binds connected software applications together. His article addresses the Achilles' heel of IoT development: API call performance. While most companies haven't yet experienced a disaster as a result of ignoring API call performance, the horizon looks filled with not-too-distant performance implosions. Now is the time to secure scalable performance and faster-than-needed throughput for API management - not when it is already too late.