Starburst's product, which is based upon a multicast FTP, breaks files into blocks and frames during transmission and sends files across a network to each recipient simultaneously. Roko said the agency's new front-end for multicasting will allow the enterprise network management personnel to monitor the multicasting activity, report on the performance of these activities on a regular basis and schedule multicasting sessions in sync with scheduled maintenance downtime. Just last month, BTG announced that it had received from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency a contract that would use the latest concepts in push technology and visual presentation techniques to give military commanders the most informative view of the battlefield. Rob Kelly, BTG's vice president in charge of the company's battlefield awareness work, said the company is exploring how the technology can be used to allow a soldier on the battlefield to register to receive automatically a certain type of updated information. Initial fervor with push technology has cooled somewhat, with some potential customers choosing not to deploy push applications.
Some agencies also are concerned about security risks.
Industry vendors have begun developing a new generation of products that address the concerns that have arisen.