Groundbreaking approach to Intrusion Prevention

17th November 2009

Napatech A/S

ES Admin

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With the transition to 10 Gbps networks, there is increasing emphasis on increasing the performance of Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to keep up with higher data rates. High-Performance IPS provides in-line processing of network traffic in real-time and has traditionally required expensive systems based on proprietary hardware platforms. With the introduction of Napatech’s family of In-line network adapters, an alternative approach based on standard off-the-shelf server hardware was made possible.

This approach can help to reduce the time, cost and technical risk associated with development of high-performance IPS.

Napatech’s In-line adapters provide multi-port 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps packet reception and transmission at full line-rate. Based on PCI-Express, the network adapters can be deployed in standard x86 servers to provide a powerful, full throughput platform for high-performance IPS solutions.

“We have seen a lot of traction with IPS system vendors interested in improving their overall IPS system throughput performance. One of the bottlenecks is pure data input/output performance and this is where Napatech network adapters excel. Another feature, however, is proving to be just as important in improving overall sustained system performance and that is our multi-CPU support. Napatech network adapters have the unique capability to identify and distribute flows on an intelligent basis to up to 32 CPU cores. This allows massive parallel processing of data and thereby improved system throughput performance”, says Erik Norup, President, Napatech, Inc.

The use of Napatech In-line adapters in combination with standard off-the-shelf server hardware means that IPS vendors no longer need to develop customized hardware to achieve high throughput performance. This allows vendors to concentrate their efforts on application software improvements. The net effect is faster time-to-market, lower development costs and less technical risk.

Napatech’s In-line adapters provide sustained full line-rate 1Gbps and 10Gbps throughput per port both on reception and transmission of packets. The adapter recognizes layer 2 through 4 protocols and can compute 17 different types of hash-keys. Using the computed hash-key or an equal distribution method, flows can be distributed across 32 CPU cores, allowing parallel processing. This allows the application to fully utilize available CPU cores