I want to thank Kirk Wylie for an excellent write up and detailed overview of the Solace hardware appliance. I recently started a new and we've began to leverage a Tibco Messaging Appliance which runs on one of these Solace devices. I thought his article gave great insights at a very high level.
Please check it out and follow Kirk!
http://kirkwylie.blogspot.com/2008/11/meeting-with-solace-systems-hardware.html