A10 Networks Launches Thunder Series Networking Appliances | eWeek

A10 Networks Launches Thunder Series Networking Appliances

A10 Networks Launches Thunder Series Networking Appliances
Written By
Nathan Eddy
Nathan Eddy
Apr 18, 2014
2 minute read
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Application networking specialist A10 Networks announced four Thunder Series appliances, including a 100 Gigabit Ethernet capable Layer 4-7 network appliance, as well as mid-range and high-end models that expand the company’s portfolio of appliances.

The appliances are based on A10’s Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) software, which improves price performance for a given amount of memory and central processing unit (CPU) resources. Prices for the new models start at $87,995.

They also leverage the same data center designs as other ACOS-based appliances, consuming less power, cooling and rack space, which the company notes are important metrics for large data center operators.

The ACOS platform is an application networking software architecture optimized for 64-bit multicore processor systems.

In order to maximize the capabilities of these increasingly dense multicore CPUs, ACOS implements a proprietary shared memory architecture that is designed to scale more efficiently than conventional memory management architectures, like inter-processor communications (IPC).

The company said this shared memory architecture enables A10 products to utilize these increasingly common multicore CPUs efficiently and scale performance with increasing CPU cores, enabling ACOS-based products to process two to five times more Web transactions per unit of computing and memory resources, power and rack space.

Aimed at organizations seeking to scale and secure demanding data center applications and networks, the Thunder Series models offer flexible 10GbE/40GbE/100GbE interface options and total throughput ranging from 40G bps to 150G bps.

“As data center traffic rates continue to rapidly rise driven by major trends like mobile and big data, our customers see increasing demands on data center networks, requiring ever great scale, performance and security,” Jason Matlof, vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “A10 has consistently delivered substantially greater price performance relative to our competitors.”

The Thunder 4430 and 4430S feature a 6-Core Xeon CPUs, while the Thunder 5430-11 and 5430S-11 boast 10-Core Xeon CPUs, the Thunder 5630 and 5630S feature 16-Core Xeon CPUs, and the Thunder 6630 and 6630S sports 24-Core Xeon CPUs. The “S” models also include single socket layer (SSL) security processors.

The A10 Thunder Series is the company’s premium product family delivering the highest performance application networking solutions up to 150G bps, integrating expanded system resources to support future feature needs, and offering an array of physical, virtual and hybrid form factors.

The Thunder Series offers a portfolio of application service gateways that address a range of customer needs, including application delivery controllers (ADCs), carrier grade networking (CGN) and DDoS mitigation solutions.

“We are committed to delivering our service provider, enterprise and Web giant customers high performance solutions that help them keep pace with traffic demands, performance requirements and increasing security threats,” Matlof said.

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