XDegrees Unveils Intelligent Infrastructure Services

XDegrees Inc, led by founders and executives from AdForce, Junglee, HP Labs and Verity, and backed by Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures, announced a suite of secure, intelligent and flexible infrastructure services and tools for enterprise software vendors and Web businesses developing Network Applications.

XDegrees introduces a host of patent-pending breakthroughs that includes the Internet's first eXtensible Resource Name System (XRNS). XRNS embraces and extends the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to enable files, machines, applications, devices and people to be addressed individually for the first time. XRNS thus allows all network resources to be more intelligently discovered, located, stored, ranked, directed and shared.

"By combining the ability to address network resources with the development of the executable Internet, Network Applications will become unhinged from servers, transparently utilizing the most appropriate architecture and leveraging resources as needed to benefit users and improve cost effectiveness," said Michael Tanne, CEO and co-founder of XDegrees. Proposing a solution on the road to revolution, XDegrees' infrastructure will easily extend existing applications, as well as give rise to a new class of Network Applications, using the best of client-server and peer-to-peer architectures. In addition to creating greater efficiencies, this new class of applications will run "outside of the box" and across the network to provide a much more consistent and rich computing experience.

Enterprise applications incorporating XDegrees' services will give their users more control over and better access to information, while allowing IT managers to better administer and leverage network resources. Web businesses will be able to scale their operations more efficiently and cost-effectively by distributing applications and information across servers, clients and devices throughout the network.

Taking the Internet to the X Degree

To create the secure, flexible and intelligent topology that Network Applications require, XDegrees' eXtensible Resource Name System (XRNS) extends DNS' concept of addressing specific servers to include all machines, data, documents, applications, devices and people, anywhere in the network. Because XRNS identifies each resource with a unique name, it allows resources to "live" in multiple locations and be discovered by logical reference rather than physical location. XRNS then determines the optimal location or set of locations from which to obtain each resource, thus improving application efficiency, network performance and user experience. "It's a logical next step to extend the network to include all machines, files, devices and people," says Chris Shipley, Executive Producer of the DEMO Conferences. "XDegrees' eXtensible Resource Name System and infrastructure services could very well be what developers need to give shape to the 'dark matter' of the Internet in order to build Network Applications that can identify, harness and leverage all needed resources to get the job done." "Building a Network Application without this kind of service is like building the Web without URLs," points out Dan Teodosiu, CTO and co-founder of XDegrees. "XRNS provides Network Applications with the metadata they need to intelligently locate, access, store, direct and share resources, independent of device or server."

For example, because XRNS addresses people as discrete individuals, XDegrees will allow for the development of secure, permission-based VPNs on the fly, as well as provide for the managed growth of the dynamic enterprise. Uniquely addressing devices will enable reliable and secure access to and use of data from any point in the network, at any time.

XDegrees' target customers include enterprise software vendors (e.g., CRM, supply chain management and Sales Force Automation), Web businesses (e.g., photo sharing and Web-based mail) and network service providers (e.g., ISPs and Content Delivery Networks).

Additional XDegrees Benefits and Tools

Security

In a distributed architecture, it is particularly important to be able to secure resources and manage access. XDegrees' security services include user authentication, user-level permissions, data encryption, resource validation and resource consistency management to allow for greater control over security for all resources.

Reliability

Reliability is another key factor in deploying any mission-critical Network Application. The Web was built with the assumption that the server is always on. This assumption must change when building Network Applications, because PCs and devices are inherently unreliable and intermittently connected. XDegrees built its infrastructure services assuming this unreliability.

By providing an abstraction layer between resources and their locations, XDegrees can make individually unreliable resources behave together as reliable Network Applications. For example, when machines go offline and come back on with a different IP address, or are hidden behind a firewall, they ping XRNS (just as an instant messaging program would ping its host) and again become part of the reliable network.

Performance

The XDegrees distributed system scales to hundreds of millions of nodes and billions of accesses per day. Because of resource replication and recovery, there is virtually no upper limit on participation or scalability. In addition, XDegrees' distributed network architecture with proprietary caching technologies ensures that the information a user wants is always "as close as possible" within the network.

"XDegrees has taken on and solved many of the extremely difficult problems in building and managing a scalable Network Application," says Dan Teodosiu. "By using XDegrees' services, developers can easily leverage this effort and focus on their own application."

XDegrees is installing redundant XRNS servers around the Internet to assure fast access. As more XRNS servers are added to a cluster, traffic is distributed amongst them. If an XRNS server fails, clients automatically re-home to the nearest server. When the failed server restarts, it is able to gracefully and quickly reestablish its state.

Control

Because XRNS works all the way down to the resource level, it enables "network dashboard" applications for IT managers. Such applications may include tools for software installation, backup, storage management, network traffic management, system configuration, application tracking and user management.

Fast and Easy Development

Developers can integrate existing applications with XDegrees' infrastructure quickly, using standards such as HTTP, XML and SOAP and programming interfaces in all common application and Web development models including COM and CGI. And developers control the user interface, whether they use a Web browser or a custom application.

XDegrees' also provides a WebGate service that ensures existing Web applications can easily incorporate a Network Applications approach. WebGate allows developers to leverage the browser, with its installed base of over 200 million users, to make Network Application resources accessible to anyone, with no download required.

To demonstrate how quickly existing applications can be adapted to leverage XDegrees' services and a distributed architecture, XDegrees also announced today an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that extends its capabilities, allowing users to seamlessly share files and attachments by merely placing them in a shared folder and identifying who should have access. Developed in a matter of weeks by exploiting XDegrees' infrastructure services, X-Outlook is a showcase application (not for distribution) that transforms the most widely used productivity and communications tool into a Network Application. X-Outlook could allow millions of existing Outlook users to easily and securely share their data, files and information with individuals or groups they specify, within their own intranet or anywhere on the Internet.

Pricing and Availability

XDegrees services and tools will be offered to application developers on both usage-based and user-license models. The XDegrees service will be available as a beta in Q2 2001.

About XDegrees

XDegrees provides secure, intelligent and flexible infrastructure services for developers of enterprise and consumer Network Applications seeking to blend the best of distributed and client-server systems. The company was founded by a team of successful entrepreneurs including founders and former executives from AdForce, HP Labs, Junglee and Amazon. Founded in 2000, XDegrees is privately held and based in Mountain View, CA. More information can be found at www.xdegrees.com.

About Redpoint Ventures

Redpoint Ventures is a leading venture capital firm focused on creating franchise and platform companies that will form the foundation of the nextgeneration and broadband Internet. Redpoint was founded in the fall of 1999 by partners from two of California's top venture capital firms, Brentwood Venture Capital and Institutional Venture Partners as a response to how the Internet was changing venture capital. Redpoint's mission is to redefine venture capital around the concept of the "Network Effect." The Network Effect applies the increasing returns model to the practice of venture capital, making the network more valuable than the sum of its parts. Redpoint is based in Menlo Park, CA with an office in Los Angeles. Redpoint can be found on the Internet at www.redpoint.com.

About Cambrian Ventures

Cambrian Ventures is a technology research and venture capital firm founded by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, co-founders of Junglee Corp. Cambrian Ventures creates and invests in disruptive technologies and applications that transform the Internet. Cambrian's investors include founders and executives from Amazon, Yahoo, Netscape, and Compaq, and have founded some of the most successful new-economy companies whose combined market value tops $100 billion.

Contact Montrese Etienne, 415-241-7194, montrese@brumet.com or for XDegrees Inc.