At this week’s Interop Las Vegas, Napatech will show a 10 Gbps IPS demonstration based on the Universal Network Appliance approach to intrusion prevention systems.
Napatech Inc. president Erik Norup says the Universal Network Appliance approach to intrusion prevention systems takes advantage of the latest standard PC servers, which offer “unprecedented processing power and efficient memory architectures.”
“When combined with intelligent real-time network analysis adapters,” Norup says, “it provides a hardware platform ideal for any network performance monitoring, test and measurement, network security, and network optimization applications.”
The development of network appliances based on standard PC servers and intelligent real-time network analysis adapters is gaining momentum, especially as a reducer of cost, risk and time-to-market.
The Napatech demonstration is based on a standard PC server using Napatech NT20E 2×10 Gbps In-line adapters for reception, pre-processing, and re-transmission of Ethernet frames. A separate Napatech NT20E will be used for full wire-speed 10 Gbps traffic generation.
“Napatech does not develop network appliances,” Norup explains, “but with this demonstration, we can show OEM network appliance manufacturers what can be achieved using the latest ‘Nehalem’ class of industry standard servers combined with intelligent real time analysis adapters.”
Norup adds, “We already have several IPS customers who have more than tripled their performance using this approach for both 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps IPS applications”.
Frost & Sullivan global program director Rob Ayoub says building IPS solutions that can operate at 10 Gbps is not an easy task. “The traditional approach has been to develop proprietary hardware, which is costly and time-consuming,” he says.
Instead, Ayoub says basing network appliance development on a standard PC server with intelligent real-time analysis network adapters is solid alternative. “IPS manufacturers can take advantage of a high-performance hardware platform to reduce cost, risk and time-to-market,” he says.
Napatech’s demonstration will take place at Interop Las Vegas (Booth 2335) April 25-29 and Infosecurity in London (stand L70) April 27-29.