A10 Networks, a secure application services company, has announced the expansion of its A10 Thunder CFW (convergent firewall) family with a new Gi/SGi firewall solution and a software-only vThunder CFW for NFV deployments.
The new A10 Thunder CFW addresses rising security concerns from service providers who are focused on the industry’s transition to 5G, broad-scale deployment of network functions virtualisation (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) technologies and the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices.
The A10 Thunder CFW also helps service providers deliver a strong, secure networking environment for their own infrastructure as well as for their subscribers by combining the security of a carrier-grade firewall with built-in CGN and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) features.
A10 Networks’ convergent firewall allows service providers and enterprises to streamline their networks by consolidating security and application networking into a single, high-performance solution. This gives A10 customers the security, high performance and efficiency to enhance their network’s predictability, while confidently introducing revenue-generating applications to service growing subscriber needs.
With the A10 Thunder CFW, service providers can achieve exceptionally high firewall connection rates – 220 Gbps of throughput, all in a one rack-unit appliance, which includes enough capacity to support up to 256 million concurrent sessions – the approximate equivalent of one connection for every citizen of Indonesia, or one connection for every desktop PC and laptop sold in the world in 2016.
Highlights of the A10 Thunder CFW:
- Gi/SGi Interface Protection — Protects subscribers and shields mobile core infrastructure – including enterprise services and NAT IP pools – from cyberattack to ensure uninterrupted operations. Includes integrated mobile network security and advanced policy enforcement capabilities, such as stateful firewall, IPsec VPN, DDoS protection and protocol anomaly protection.
- IPsec for Mobile Backhaul Protection — The connection between cell sites and core networks are not inherently secure. A high-scale IPsec VPN between LTE cells and security gateways helps mitigate risks of mobile devices targeting mobile core infrastructure and maintains confidentiality and data integrity for subscriber traffic. This is also useful in cases where an operator offers carrier grade Wi-Fi over an untrusted Wi-Fi access network.
- 5G-ready — Supports a high number of concurrent sessions, and subscriber scale, to provide performance and availability for network scaling demands, ensuring providers maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty with the 5G transition.
- Ready for the Modern Network — Carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) functionality is fully integrated with the A10’s Gi/SGi firewall to address the shortage of IPv4 addresses and extends a provider’s current IPv4 investment. Thunder CFW provides comprehensive IPv6 transition options. Convergence of the Gi/SGi firewall with CGNAT capabilities produces welcome CapEx and OpEx reduction.
- Accelerates adoption of SDN/NFV — The new vThunder CFW supports emerging architecture and offers a flexible, pure software appliance ready to support emerging data centre and cloud architectures.