What Is XC10: Data Grid in a Box
The WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance is a purpose-built, easy-to-use appliance designed for simplified deployment and hardened security at the caching tier of your enterprise application infrastructure. It incorporates 160GB cache into the DataPower line of appliances from IBM, adding elastic caching functions that enable your business-critical applications to scale cost effectively with consistent performance. The DataPower XC10 is designed for rapid, "drop-in" use in conjunction with WebSphere Application Server and other WebSphere family products where it can deliver a cost-effective, distributed caching solution in support of data-oriented distributed caching scenarios.

Figure 1 : Scalability enabled by XC10 – Caching Appliance

What Is XI50: ESB in a Box
The IBM DataPower XI50 network device offers a light message broker, enterprise service buses (ESBs) and mainframe XML enablement. The IBM WebSphere DataPower XML Integration Appliance XI50 offers all the features of the XA35 and the XS40 combined with the ability to convert application integration into a network function, handling transformation, routing and an independent audit of the transport layer. This integrated network solution makes mainframes XML-compatible, in addition to functions for light message brokering and wire speed conversion between any text, in binary or XML format.

The IBM WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 and the new WebSphere DataPower Integration Blade XI50B are complete hardware platforms for delivering highly manageable, more secure and scalable integration solutions. Some Notable features include:

• The WebSphere DataPower Integration Blade XI50B extends WebSphere DataPower SOA appliance capabilities through enhanced operational efficiency with the adoption of the latest IBM BladeCenter technologies
• Enhanced performance with next-generation XML hardware acceleration and 10 gigabit Ethernet, and optimized load distribution with the Option for Application Optimization.
• Both the XI50 and the XI50B provide leading capabilities and benefits including:
• Simplifies infrastructure with Application Optimization option to provide intelligent back-end application workload balancing (available only for 9235 and 4195 machine types)
• Bridges to Web 2.0 technologies with JSON filtering and validation, support for REST verbs, and converting/bridging of REST and Web services.
• Rapidly configurable Web Application Firewall security to protect against cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and a wide variety of XML threats.
• Provides fast and flexible application integration with declarative any-to-any transformations between disparate message formats.
• Reduces integration costs with wirespeed mediation, protocol bridging, transport mediation and content-based message routing.
• Enables extreme reliability by securing services at the network layer with advanced XML/SOAP/WS-Web services processing and policy enforcement.
• Lowers operational costs with native connectivity to existing access control, monitoring, database and management systems and processes.
• Offers standards-based, centralized governance and security, with support for a broad array of standards such as WS-Security and WS-SecurityPolicy.

Figure 2: DataPower XI50 – SOA Appliance –General Functions

The XI50 meets these requirements by providing security and wire speed XML-integration for a fraction of the time, cost, risk and complexity of a software solution. Its functions include:

• Any-to-any message transformation, such as binary, text and XML messages
• Lightweight, protocol-independent message brokering
• Message-level XML security and fine-grained access control
• A gateway between networks for mission-critical transactions in SOA architectures or ESB urbanizations
• Reduced operational complexity through absorption in a network device

(Source:activnetworks.com)

Figure 3: Datapower XI50 – Message transformation