Ultra Messaging Desktop Services (UMDS) extends 29West Messaging to diverse desktop networks throughout the enterprise. Using a client/server model, UMDS allows customer applications running on desktops to participate in a 29West messaging backbone. The high performance publish/subscribe UMDS messaging server also provides fully managed .NET, pure JavaTM and C APIs and offers server-based filtering for desktops. Available platforms are Linux for the server and clients on Linux and Windows in C.

Systems with hundreds or thousands of nodes typically include several different classes of participants. Some machines are fast, well managed and want the lowest possible latency; these machines can participate directly on the messaging backbone. Many other participants are slower, have applications that are interested in only some of the data from the messaging backbone, and are either not multicast capable or unable to keep up with the high-speed backbone. With UMDS, all of these different classes of machine can participate fully in the messaging system.

Other key benefits of UMDS are its simplified API and minimal required configuration, giving application designers a shorter learning curve. Server administrators are also given centralized control over authorization and administration.

"We are excited about taking our high performance solutions to the next level of enterprise deployment," said Mark Mahowald, Founder and President of 29West. "As we were working with a number of the larger banks on large, high performance backbones, we were asked if we could extend our messaging framework to allow slower machines - those that could not connect to the multicast backbone - to share in the topic space and communicate across the enterprise. Working with the banks over the past 18 months, we came up with a two-tier architecture using UMDS for TCP-connected slower machines and LBM or UME for the backbone network." Mahowald added, "With UMDS we have a solsolution that allows for centralized management and an easy way to deploy desktop applications that can share the same topic space and communicate seamlessly with the ultra low latency, high-speed multicast messaging backbone."

"Many firms see the advantage of a pure application-to-application multicast environment when the highest scaling and lowest possible latency is needed," said Mike Garwood, Director of software development for 29West. "At the edges of such networks there is sometimes a need to push data to slower or minimally controlled machines that are not connected to the high speed backbone. Many customers are exploring specialty hardware to provide this high speed fan out. With UMDS, we offer these customers the ability to provide this controlled and centrally managed TCP fan out, but leveraging commodity hardware at a dramatically lower price point."

29West is currently offering early access to customers who wish to evaluate UMDS and expects to provide general availability in Q4 of 2008.