A10 Networks introduces Thunder SPE appliance family

Thunder SPE appliances leverage A10’s innovative new Security and Policy Engine (SPE) to implement security and policy enforcement functions at higher speed, harnessing the power of additional and enhanced hardware components. These solutions have robust security and processing hardware functionality that allow them to continue to provide full system functionality, even while simultaneously under volumetric attacks, without impacting system performance. Thunder SPE appliances are capable of performing any policy-based networking actions in hardware, including those involving security and quality of service, and can enforce at ultra high speeds in increasingly dynamic cloud environments where policies change frequently.

The new Thunder SPE appliances are particularly powerful in preventing the rising occurrence of DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks from debilitating a customer’s network and server infrastructure. Recently, the frequency and volume of DDoS attacks has risen dramatically, resulting in costly network and service outages. With the high throughput nature of these attacks, the market needs appliances capable of performing detection and mitigation tasks rapidly in hardware to adequately prevent data center infrastructure from being overwhelmed. Thunder SPE appliances provide high-performance, hardware-based security and policy enforcement to all A10 product lines, including Thunder ADC, CGN and TPS, delivering the performance and capacity customers need to ensure their networks protected against high-speed, volumetric attacks.

As an example of the value of this ultra-high performance appliance, A10 also announced today integrated DDoS protection capabilities for its Thunder CGN product line, illustrating an ideal use case for where ultra-high performance creates a much more secure and compelling solution for detecting and mitigating sophisticated, volumetric attacks at a very critical point in the network.

“Given the ACOS platform and its performance capabilities, A10’s extension into security and policy represents a logical evolution,” said Brad Casemore, IDC research director for datacenter networks. “What’s more, as customers — service providers and enterprises alike — embrace cloud and mobility, they are seeking new approaches and solutions that detect and mitigate sophisticated, volumetric attacks.“

“Threat detection and mitigation are rapidly becoming a performance game, where the sophistication and volume of attacks are specifically designed to overwhelm lesser performing network devices, thus rendering a provider’s network infrastructure and applications vulnerable to downtime and further threats,” said Jason Matlof, A10 Networks vice president of marketing. “With leading high-performance hardware systems, A10 is able to offer protection against aggressive attacks to customers in the most challenging threat environments.”