F5, Citrix get apps up to speed

F5 Networks and Citrix Systems this week are expected to launch software and hardware products targeted at small and large businesses that want to speed up and secure Web-based applications.

F5 is introducing a Web application firewall module for its application switches, with the promise of adding greater levels of data protection and security for e-commerce applications. F5's new rival Citrix is launching an application acceleration box under its recently acquired NetScaler brand, aimed at speeding up and securing small and midsize server farms.

F5's Application Security Module is software that runs on the vendor's Big-IP line of Layer 4-7 application switches and inspects Web traffic at Layer 7 and can actively filter, reroute or alter HTTP content to make Web applications run more securely, F5 says.

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F5 Networks and Citrix Systems this week are expected to launch software and hardware products targeted at small and large businesses that want to speed up and secure Web-based applications.

F5 is introducing a Web application firewall module for its application switches, with the promise of adding greater levels of data protection and security for e-commerce applications. F5's new rival Citrix is launching an application acceleration box under its recently acquired NetScaler brand, aimed at speeding up and securing small and midsize server farms.

F5's Application Security Module is software that runs on the vendor's Big-IP line of Layer 4-7 application switches and inspects Web traffic at Layer 7 and can actively filter, reroute or alter HTTP content to make Web applications run more securely, F5 says.

The software can look into Layer 7, or application layer, packet data such as HTTP address destinations, cookie information and other data. Instead of rerouting to servers or other devices based on the data, the software can alter the contents of the packet.

F5 says an example of this is stripping out credit card information or other sensitive customer data from Web traffic, or identifying harmful content such as malicious code in a Web packet and deleting it.

Click to see: Layer 4-7 squeeze

The software starts at $15,000. It runs on all models of F5's Big-IP switches running Version 9 of its TM/OS switch operating system.

Citrix's new offering is a scaled-down version of its Application Switch Enterprise Edition, which runs in such data centers as Google and Merrill Lynch. Citrix says the Application Switch Standard Edition is targeted at customers that would not be able to afford the high-end NetScaler box, but need more application acceleration technology than basic Layer 4 load balancing switches, and possibly TCP/IP offload cards or SSL acceleration hardware running on servers.

The Standard Edition product is the first product application acceleration hardware launch for the company since it bought NetScaler in June for $300 million.

The device runs at 600M bit/sec for top throughput, as opposed to the 4.8G bit/sec of the Enterprise box. Also, the small and midsize business-focused device includes Layer 4-7 switching, load balancing, SSL offload and Layer 7 denial-of-service traffic identification features. But such services are implemented at lower rates of processing on the Standard Edition box, the vendor says.

The Citrix NetScaler Application Switch Standard Edition costs $17,500. The Enterprise Edition starts at $35,000.

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.