Solace Systems this week announced the general availability of its 3200 Series Multiservice Message Router.

The 3200 Series is a "content-aware" router that forwards traffic based on intelligence about the particular application generating the traffic. Content-aware networks provide deeper visibility into data exchanged between applications than do typical IP packet routers, and can interpret the content.

Keywords can be recognized and acted upon during the message-forwarding procedure. Actions such as security policy enforcement, delivery to multiple destinations, and message prioritization can be performed based on this recognition, Solace says.

The 3200 supports XML standards 1.0/1.1, XPath 1.0, SOAP 1.1/1.2, and WS-Eventing, as well as HTTP 1.0, HTTP 1.1 and HTTPS network standards.

Message-based routing is picking up some steam. Cisco made several suggestions last December that it would enter the market, and the company is reportedly developing an XML switch expected at mid-year.

In addition to Solace, Cisco would join start-ups Conformative, DataPower and Sarvega in the market.