A10 Networks releases AX 5630 Application Delivery Controller with over 200 new features

A10 Networks, the technology leader in Application Networking, recently unveiled its new flagship AX 5630 Application Delivery Controller (ADC), which sets an industry performance record for connections per second, secure SSL connections and distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection in a compact 3 rack unit (RU), 40-Gigabit port appliance. The AX 5630 runs on A10’s new Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) version 2.7, which introduces SSL Intercept, a security solution designed for enhanced enterprise protection. ACOS 2.7 also includes over 200 new features, performance enhancements for the AX 3530 and expanded hypervisor support for SoftAX.

ACOS 2.7 solution highlights include:

• Unbreakable security - enables high performance deployments with more secure 4096-bit keys due to new SSL hardware acceleration modules.
• Enhanced user end-to-end security - near performance parity for 2048 and 1024-bit keys alleviates a major SSL bottleneck, and enables organisations to cost-effectively encrypt entire sessions, rather than select elements, such as logins.
• Inspection for encrypted connections - SSL Intercept increases enterprise security by allowing inspection of encrypted content, such as HTTPS sessions, by trusted security devices, for example firewalls, UTM appliances and more.
• Safeguards for key infrastructure - with DNS Application Firewall enhancements organisations can use granular policies to protect their brand while optimising and reducing costs for servers.
• Cloud flexibility - Additional SoftAX virtual appliance options enable cost-effective flexible, multi-tenant architectures for Xen and KVM hypervisors, in addition to existing VMware vSphere versions.

"A10’s new AX 5630 and ACOS release continue our commitment to delivering world-class customer-driven innovation,” said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO for A10 Networks. "Many of our large customers are increasing their security posture, including requiring encryption on all communications, which is taxing on current infrastructures. We are taking a leadership position to address this need by delivering the highest application, SSL and DDoS performance and the most advanced security features in our energy-efficient and flexible AX Series solutions."

Updates to the AX Series family include:

• AX 5630: Compact 3 RU, 40-Gigabit port platform designed for the most demanding carrier and enterprise applications, high density deployments, and multi-vendor data center consolidation.
1. Sets an industry record breaking 6 million Layer 4 connections per second (L4 CPS).
2. New SSL acceleration hardware delivers near-parity for 1024 and 2048-bit key performance. SSL throughput for 1024/2048-bit keys is 40 Gigabits per second (Gbps)/36 Gbps; SSL CPS is 180,000/174,000. 4096-bit key support for higher security environments is a record setting 58,000 SSL CPS and 21 Gbps of SSL throughput. 
3. Application throughput is 77 Gbps or up to 616 Gbps in an 8-unit aVCS cluster. 
4. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) SYN flood protection delivers a record setting 100+ million SYN cookies per second.
5. Hardware highlights include two Intel Xeon eight-core processors, four 40-Gigabit ports (QSFP+), 24 10-Gigabit ports (SFP+), four Gigabit ports (SFP), 128 GB of error correction code (ECC) memory, solid-state drive (SSD), three power supplies (dual redundant power supplies, plus one spare installed), removable smart fans, tamper detection, lights-out management (LOM/IPMI), L2/3 networking ASIC, four Flexible Traffic ASIC (FTA-2) processors, and expansion cards for high SSL performance.
6. Maximum power consumption is only 890 Watts.

• AX 3530: ACOS 2.7 delivers superior ADC performance in Layer 4 CPS, SSL and throughput in a compact 1 RU appliance. 

1.  New SSL acceleration hardware delivers near-parity for 1024 and 2048-bit key performance. SSL throughput for 1024 and 2048-bit keys is 24 Gbps/23 Gbps; SSL CPS is 120,000/98,000. 4096-bit key support for higher security environments is 15,000 SSL CPS and 17 Gbps throughput. 
2. 1.3 million L4 CPS and application throughput of 115 Gbps in 1 RU with up to 920 Gbps throughput in an 8-unit aVCS cluster.

•  SoftAX: Additional hypervisor support for Citrix Xen and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisors, in addition to current VMware versions, add flexibility to virtual appliance options.

1. All SoftAX virtual appliances default to the highest system configuration with ACOS 2.7, and offer a hardware appliance upgrade.
2. SoftAX delivers up to 8 Gbps throughput, offering the highest virtual appliance performance on the market today.

•  New Security Solutions

1. Enhanced SSL performance options for 2048 and 4096-bit keys: New Nitrox III factory installed hardware options for the AX 3000-11, 3200-12, 3400, 5200-11, 3530 and 5630 deliver record-breaking SSL performance for 1024, 2048 and 4096-bit keys. AX 5630 performance is 50% more than competitors’ highest end chassis platforms.
2. SSL Intercept: Enables decryption of TLS/SSL traffic for inspection by security devices (for example IPS, IDS, DLP, UTM, standard firewalls and more), before the traffic is sent to an AX device, which then encrypts and forwards the traffic. The AX Series provides the most scalable platform due to the high-performance dedicated SSL processing hardware optimised by ACOS.
3. DNS Application Firewall Support for aFleX: A10’s DNS Application Firewall is enhanced with full aFleX support for commands to perform DNS-related operations, enabling additional checks and/or adjustment of transmitted record data.
4. DDoS Scalability:  AX 5630’s DDoS with FTA-2 technology enables the highest scalability for front-end server protection.
5. TLS 1.2 Support: Cipher options for TLS v1.1 and TLS v1.2.
6. DNSSEC: DNSSEC Key Signing enhancements and DNSSEC templates.

•  Other Enhancements

1. AX-V 3000-11-GCF support for 2.7, jumbo frame support, Application Delivery Partition (ADP) resource controls per partition, enhanced Firewall Load Balancing (FWLB), additional routing protocol support, aXAPI enhancements, significant enhancements to aFleX (for example DNS and SIP support) and more.

All AX Series platforms are dual-stack ready, ensuring the maximum flexibility with IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, enabling both native support and the most advanced IPv4/IPv6 translation capabilities. All AX Series features are available without extra licensing fees, including aFleX Layer 7 traffic scripting, aXAPI (RESTful XML management API) and more. Customers are increasingly choosing the AX Series ADCs over traditional platforms due to unique capabilities, flexibility, scalability and overall value.

Availability

AX Series enhancements and new models are available in October 2012 with the ACOS 2.7 release.