Corrent joins Check Point partner list

Corrent, of Tempe, Ariz., used to make just processors and security acceleration boards but now it has joined the roster of companies that sell Check Point firewall/VPN software loaded onto dedicated hardware appliances.

Called SR500 and SR600, Corrent’s two devices come with Check Point VPN-1/Firewall-1 software and the company claims the products pack enough processing power to keep them from being swamped during denial-of-service attacks.

The company says the devices can block denial-of-service attacks at 1G bit/sec while allowing nearly the same amount (949M bit/sec) of good traffic to pass through.

Corrent’s architecture breaks down security processing into separate operations that are handled by separate processors. A Corrent security processor handles IPSec, two Intel Xeon processors runs Check Point’s Layer 7 Application Intelligence, and a network processor handles packet processing. The chassis is a rack-mounded IBM xSeries server running Linux.

Corrent says it built its gear for speed, and that it supports 50,000 firewall connections per second and can handle up to 1 million simultaneously. The company also claims it can support up to 20,000 VPN tunnels.

The SR600 costs between $39,900 and $45,000, depending on the number of ports. It supports up to nine accelerated 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and comes with two non-accelerated ports for box-to-box communication and out of band management. SR500 costs between $35,900 and $40,000, and can come with up to five accelerated and two unaccelerated ports.

Corrent is three years old, and in that time has developed security chips and a security-acceleration board that is sold by Check Point under the name Secure XL Turbocard.

While you might not have heard of Corrent before, the fact that it has a track record in security hardware and is piecing together its appliances from known commodities make these devices something to consider if you are in the market for firewall/VPN gear in this category.