"XML has become the dominant vehicle for data exchange," says Tarari, "but a growing awareness of critical performance issues has prevented widespread deployment of Web Services solutions." The company aims to fix this perceived problem with the XML RAX Content Processor (RAX 4), announced at Interop in Las Vegas.

RAX 4, which it says is the industry's only in-silicon and software implementation of Random Access XML. The RAX 4 includes full, integrated support for the complex features of XML Schema and special SOAP message validation at 10,000 and greater validations per second. This provides a 100X increase in performance when compared to conventional software, the company says.

Tarari also announced Software RAX, a full RAX implementation in software that provides a software failover capability in the event of hardware failure, or that can be used on entry-level systems that need RAX acceleration.

RAX 4 incorporates Tarari's silicon "Grammar Processor" and accelerates XML processing in networking devices, servers and gateways, enables network switch, server, blade, and appliance vendors to create a variety of new applications. This list includes:
* Gigabit message classification and routing
* High transaction rate publish and subscribe systems
 * Advanced SOAP message processing
* High-performance XML security firewalls
 * VoIP call tracking, billing, and other real-time, event driven transactional solutions

Tarari has benchmarked RAX 4 on a single dual 2.8 Ghz Xeon appliance performing at over 11,000 full XML Schema validations per second on SOAP messages and attaining one gigabit per second throughput. Software RAX also provides a way for OEMs to include RAX acceleration on entry-level devices that don't have a PCI slot, the company says. Tarari has benchmarked Software RAX and is seeing performance that is as much as 10 times faster than conventional XML software for SAML and content-based routing applications.