The company's SitePathMTPX appliances create logical paths between sites using all the available Internet links connecting to business sites.
A SitePath device sits at each site inline with Internet routers and monitors the performance of all possible paths between sites. It directs traffic to the best path -- the one with the least latency and the most bandwidth.
If a link fails, the device directs traffic to an alternative path and can do so without losing VPN tunnels that may be using the downed path.
With its new software release, Elfiq is making it possible to make use of more than one path at a time by multiplexing data over more than one path. Before, the devices could identify multiple paths, but had to pick just one based on characteristics of the path and policies set by users.
Customers set how they define the best path using available bandwidth and latency as determining factors.
The result is that businesses can use the paths for VPNs with faster response times and that are less susceptible to crashing because a link goes down.
If a physical link fails, the devices redirect packets to an alternate route. They can do so without having to renegotiate VPN tunnels that happen to be traveling over the paths, the company says.
Elfiq devices are deployed in pairs and attach to however many WAN links connect to the site where they are located. They are typically located between firewalls and WAN routers.
If each site has two Internet connections, the devices can create four paths; two from each ISP link at the first site connecting to each ISP link at the second site.
Previously, the device had to pick one path at a time to send traffic along, but now the devices can multiplex traffic by splitting it up and sending it along multiple paths. This increases the net bandwidth and so the throughput between sites.
The SitePath devices perform network address translation () on packets they redirect but don't worry about the order in which the multiplexed packets arrive; that is left up to other devices.