Foundry Adds SSL, Web Accelerators to Switching Line

Foundry Networks on Monday refreshed its Layer 4 through Layer 7 switching line with new application acceleration, security and business continuity enhancements.

With a little something for enterprises and services providers, the San Jose, Calif., networking vendor addressed the need to accelerate Web applications while supporting a coexisting infrastructure for both Web and non-Web applications through a new series of accelerator devices.

The new ServerIronSA Series devices include four new SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and Web accelerators that don’t sacrifice the performance of non-SSL traffic and that boost WAN bandwidth utilization through compression, according to Gopala Tumuluri, product line manager in San Jose.

By offering the functionality in add-on accelerator appliances, Foundry will allow users to increase the scale and performance of e-commerce applications as demand increases without having to replace the existing infrastructure, Tumuluri said.

The approach contrasts with competitors such as F5 Networks, which is consolidating more application and security acceleration along with load-balancing and compression functions in a single switch.

The devices can support from 200 to 11,000 SSL connections per second, and they support between 100 Megabits per second to 700 Mbps of throughput for SSL and Web compression.

The appliances, which range from $9,995 to $44,995, are due in February.

To address the need for greater security scalability, Foundry enhanced its ServerIron TrafficWorks operating system with the ability to scale DoS (denial of service) attack protection to 10 Gigabits per second data rates.

Foundry also addressed 30 new types of DoS attacks with new protection for each to “keep illegal traffic of the server farm from illegal users,” Tumuluri said.

At the same time, Foundry sought to improve business continuity in the new TrafficWorks release by adding the ability to fail over to a secondary data center through an intelligent routing mechanism.

Click here to read about Foundry’s EdgeIron 10 Gigabit Ethernet aggregation switch.

Finally, Foundry expanded on the ServerIronGT E-Series line of load-balancing and traffic-management switches it launched earlier this year with a pair that offer different port, price and performance options.

The new GT E-Series switches include a 24-port 10/100 version with four Gigabit Ethernet ports, which is due in February, and a four-port Gigabit Ethernet version available now.

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