Application acceleration, WAN optimization and security are key features.
Foundry Networks and Citrix are two companies planning to use Interop to launch application acceleration tools.
Foundry plans to announce a server offload device; Citrix will launch boxes designed to speed up WAN links; and Adtran and StillSecure will introduce LAN switch and network access control (NAC)-based security gear.
Foundry’s ServerIron 4G switch is designed to sit in front of Web and application servers and speed up client access by offloading some security and network functions. The device can take over SSL encryption duties from a Web server and provide server load balancing at Layers 4 and 7, Foundry says.
The device includes Web application firewall capabilities, which let it drop connections associated with suspicious behavior, such as incorrect data repeatedly entered into Web forms. It has four 100/1000Mbps copper or fiber ports, and starts at $12,000.
Citrix is announcing two appliances in its WANScaler family, with improvements that speed up WAN performance by reducing the number of bits that have to cross the connection. The 8000-series WANScaler devices, unlike devices in the earlier 6000 series, have disk storage, which is used to store traffic. That makes it possible to scan larger data sets for repetitive blocks that can be replaced by tokens that are sent over the link instead of the bits themselves. Citrix says the use of tokens can reduce traffic by as much as 3,500-to-1.
The high-end WANScaler 8800 for data centers supports 50,000 simultaneous connections and has an 850GB hard drive. It is priced from $40,000 to $94,000 depending on the size of the WAN link it supports, from 10M to 150Mbps. The WANScaler 8500 has a 160GB drive and costs $8,500 to $45,000 depending on the size of the links, from T-1 to T-3.
Citrix also is upgrading software for its NetScaler appliances, which front-end Web servers and speed up transactions. Outfitted with the new software, a single appliance can support as many as 15,000 servers and divide them into service groups. That means if a single service is supported by multiple servers, the appliance can represent the servers through a single IP address.
It also can rewrite HTTP headers on inbound and outbound traffic to mask details about internal network addressing from those accessing servers via the Web. Citrix has added server load balancing for Session Initiation Protocol servers, a feature NetScaler appliances lacked before.
Adtran is announcing two sets of managed switches for small offices.
The NetVanta 3448 is a multiservice access router that includes a router, eight-port 10/100Mbps switch, firewall and optional IPSec VPN support and Power over Ethernet (PoE). The box, which replaces the NetVanta 3200, supports two T-1 WAN links as well as 56Kbps and ADSL2+ asymmetric-DSL connections. It costs $1,045. PoE support will be available for $345 in the fourth quarter.
Enhanced VPN capabilities cost $395 extra. The switch also supports QoS. The new NetVanta 3430 is the same platform without the switch; it costs $895.
Adtran also will announce the 3100 family of NetVanta fixed-port routers. They include a firewall, IPSec VPN, support for 802.1X authentication and QoS. The 3120 is a four-port switch with a 10/100Mbps WAN port and an analog modem. It costs $645. The 3130 router is the same, but has a DSL WAN port; it costs $595.
On the NAC front, StillSecure is making it simpler to use multiple methods of enforcing network access rules within a single network. With Version 5.0 of its Safe Access NAC software, customers can manage five different enforcement points from a single console. Safe Access scans devices attempting to access networks, and blocks them if they fail to meet network security policies. The software blocks access in five ways: blocking at switches using 802.1X authentication, having the Safe Access server drop traffic from the devices, using DHCP servers to deny access, manipulating the routing on the endpoint to block it from network resources, or using Cisco NAC-compliant enforcement.
StillSecure also has upgraded its management software to grant limited administrative rights based on administrator roles, and the software now can cluster servers for redundancy and load balancing.
StillSecure 5.0 is expected to be available Oct. 13. Pricing will be based on the number of users.
NeoAccel is branching out into NAC, introducing an appliance that restricts the use of networks, based on three factors: the user, the machine being used and the network resources they are trying to access.
Called NAM-Plus, the device contains a policy engine that takes into account the user who is trying to access the network and the security posture of the machine being used.
So far the company has an independent NAC scheme that is separate from Cisco’s NAC, Microsoft’s Network Access Protection and the Trusted Computing Group’s Trusted Network Connect.
NeoAccel relies on NeoAccel Trust Agent software to scan endpoints, and separate software called NeoAccel Gatekeeper, which quarantines devices until they pass admission standards. Trust Agent and Gatekeeper are integrated in NeoAccel’s SSL VPN gear called SSL VPN-Plus.
If shortcomings are found in machines trying to access the network, the NAC scheme fixes them before the device is allowed access. The policy engine dictates what resources each user-machine combination is authorized to reach.
NAM-Plus is expected to be available next month and costs $10,000 for a device that supports 3,000 concurrent users.
