Virtualization, dynamic traffic management features and ease-of-use enhancements are included without additional fees.
A10 Networks, a provider of Application Delivery Controllers,
unveiled enhanced customer-driven capabilities with its new AX Series
software release. The entire AX Series family received a range of
feature enhancements, all without additional licensing fees. A10's AX
Series is a new generation server load balancer with a 64-bit
shared-memory and multi-CPU Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS)
architecture designed to improve performance, scalability, efficiency
and flexibility. The AX Series enhancements are available for download
in version 2.6 without additional charge and scheduled for release by
end of this month.
Updates in the AX Series include virtualization technologies to enable
cloud computing, such as aVCS (Virtual Chassis System), designed to
enable organizations to scale as they grow by linearly scaling to eight
AX Series appliances in a virtual cluster, which is operated and
managed as a single unified device. Functionality includes support for
Layer 2/3 topologies, more efficient high availability, and cluster
resizing for seamless capacity provisioning/de-provisioning with
upgrades/downgrades.
In addition, expanded capabilities within Application Delivery
Partitions (ADPs) offer per partition granularity for Layer 2/3 network
virtualization and hardware virtualization, and an upgraded beta
version of SoftAX based on this release will be available for download.
Dynamic traffic management and protection features include aFlow, which
enables predictable performance without outages during peak traffic
conditions. Instead of dropping valid requests or having non-responsive
servers in the event of peak traffic conditions, aFlow queues
end-users' requests automatically. When the response time returns to an
acceptable level, the AX device sends the queued requests to the
servers.
"WWE operates a real-time Web voting system, which causes frequent and
unpredictable 'flash crowds' during our wrestling events that result in
peak traffic conditions," said Phillip James, manager of digital media
operations at World Wrestling Entertainment. "The aFlow feature in
A10's new AX Series software release will add another intelligent layer
on top of the existing AX rate and limit controls to protect our
servers from being overwhelmed, ensuring our viewers can continue to
vote for their favorite wrestlers in real-time and uninterrupted."
Geo-location based connection limiting per VIP provides the ability to
mitigate DDoS attacks from specific countries or regions
automatically. For example, connections limits would be based on
expected geographic traffic patterns, ensuring localized anomalous
traffic such as botnet attacks are neutralized, while other regional
traffic flows unhindered. Selective DNS caching monitors for an
excessive number of DNS queries, and when detected automatically
enables granular DNS caching polices, for example on a per domain
basis.
"With our new release, we delivered the first milestone on our Cloud
Computing and Virtualization Roadmap by offering customers a wide range
of virtualization options with our AX Series," said Lee Chen, founder
and CEO for A10 Networks. "This major enhancement to our feature
set demonstrates why A10 is the natural alternative to legacy
solutions, offering customers more innovation and better value. A10 is
not just the fastest growing application delivery vendor, we are one of
the fastest growing companies in America, and we see our growth only
accelerating as we deliver on customer requirements."
Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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