Reston, Virginia
October 29, 2012

ScientiaMobile, Inc., a US company offering the popular WURFL mobile detection framework, has today announced the availability of WURFL Modules for the Apache, NGINX and Varnish Cache platforms for large companies and enterprises that intend to integrate device detection within the lowemr levels of their technology stack. The new modules build on the performance and accuracy of the WURFL C++ API, which is also made available for the Linux, Unix and Windows platforms.

From today, users of the Varnish Cache web application accelerator can adopt the WURFL VMOD for a variety of use cases. The WURFL Module will expose WURFL device capabilities to the VCL scripting language. Among the possibilities:

• Easily detect smartphones, feature phones, tablets, smart-tvs and desktop web browsers and apply different content strategies for each segment.
• Augment HTTP requests with extra custom HTTP headers that reveal device information (for example: “is-tablet: true”).
• Manage caching strategies in variable ways depending on device features.

Adopters of the Apache and NGINX reverse proxies will have access to the same features. When those tools are used as web servers, an additional use-case is supported:

• Expose WURFL capabilities as environment (ENV) variables accessible by scripting languages, such as PHP, Perl and all the languages that can run in a CGI environment.

“Adding WURFL device capabilities to incoming HTTP requests is a very compelling option, as it instantly makes device detection available to all the applications within an organization. When you couple this with the performance and accuracy of our native C++ API, you have a product second to none.” said Steve Kamerman, COO at ScientiaMobile.

“Among other advantages, the new WURFL modules enable proxies to augment HTTP and CGI environments with device information. This effectively relieves developers from the need to integrate a device detection API into their applications to make them mobile-aware. Large organizations, particularly those running a multitude of web platforms, will appreciate the advantage of this evolution.” said Luca Passani, ScientiaMobile’s CTO

“We have been beta testers of the C++ API. We needed a solution to deliver device detection within milliseconds and we were looking into Memcache to supplement the existing caching of the API. It turned out that the API was fast enough that Memcache is no longer required. To add to this, support by ScientiaMobile was great and we are happy customers” said Bram Vollebregt, CTO at VitaMobi, Inc.

“I was offered access to a preliminary version of the Varnish Cache module. I can confirm that it does exactly what it says on the tin: expose device information to the VCL, the Varnish Configuration Language. Capability look-ups happen through a native C++ API. Performance and precision are great, and vastly superior to previous third-party attempts to look-up WURFL by parsing raw XML each time.” said Morten Fangel, a web developer at Version2.dk and long-time user of Varnish Cache in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“WURFL is the de-facto standard device detection framework and the most accurate Device Description Repository out there. Our engineers love it for its open approach of presenting the device information in an easily intelligible XML-based format. We are excited to see ScientiaMobile deliver a product that allows our customers to leverage their past WURFL investments as they delegate mobile detection to their web servers and reverse proxies†said Diego Catania, VP of Engineering at Omnia Com s.r.l.

For more information and inquiries about the products, interested parties can refer to the ScientiaMobile website at http://www.scientiamobile.com

About WURFL™

WURFL, the Wireless Universal Resource FiLe, is a popular framework to solve the so-called “Device Fragmentation” problem for mobile web developers and other stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem. WURFL has been and still is the de-facto standard Device Description Repository (DDR) adopted by mobile developers. WURFL™ is the Trademark of ScientiaMobile, Inc.

About ScientiaMobile

ScientiaMobile is the leader in device identification and capability mapping. Its unique value proposition is driven by its WURFL Device Description Repository (DDR), developed over 10 years and recognized globally as a rich, fast and flexible device device capability database. The company offers both a stand-alone device detection and capability product, as well as a cloud-based solution suitable for simple to complex enterprise environments. The company is headquartered in Reston, VA, USA.

About NGINX, Apache and Varnish Cache

Apache, NGINX and Varnish Cache are the Trademarks of Apache Software Foundation, NGNIX Software Inc., RedPill Linpro AS and Varnish Software AB respectively. ScientiaMobile is not affiliated with such organizations.