Foundry Networks' IronWare 8.0R Operating System for its ServerIron 400/800 Web switch product line promises enhanced security and availability for service provider networks.

by Wayne Kawamoto [April 22, 2002]

Foundry Networsks, Inc., a provider of enterprise and service provider switching, routing, and traffic management solutions, announced a new operating system release that supports its ServerIron Web switch product line. According to the company, the major features in this release include: the integration of routing into ServerIron modular switches, which should provide full Layer 2-7 functionality to simplify and enhance network design; transaction rate limiting (TRL) to reduce denial of service (DoS) attacks; flow monitoring and capture management utility to speed server data center trouble shooting; and high availability network address translation (NAT) to enhance network and server security, and conserve IP address space while providing stateful fault-tolerance.

More specifically, the new TrafficWorks IronWare 8.0R contains the following major enhancements to provide increased security and high availability access for data centers:

• Complete Layer 3 Routing Protocol Support
  Foundry's Layer 3 routing feature set including full OSPF is now integrated into the TrafficWorks IronWare software suite that supports ServerIron 400/800 systems. This should allow customers to simplify server farm design, consolidate the necessary network equipment, and perform bi-directional load distribution to external routers.
  
  
• Transaction Rate Limiting (TRL)
  Unlike packet based rate limiting in Layer 2/3 switches, ServerIron Web switches should perform flow rate limiting to protect against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. Based on Layer 4 port level information, ServerIron switches should limit users or traffic types within a certain overall bandwidth and resource usage. TRL should enhance application-level QoS by allowing legitimate users access to servers while controlling abusive usage patterns.
  
  
• Flow Monitoring and Capture
  Designed to monitor and capture sophisticated traffic details according to user-defined flow patterns. This may avoid the need for external probes and monitoring software and help network and server administrators troubleshoot and simplify the deployment of web-based intranet, Internet or extranet applications.
  
  
• High Availability Network Address Translation (NAT)
  NAT is widely used across enterprise and service provider networks, however, according to the company, few products offer stateful protection in case of a NAT device failure. For this, ServerIron is designed to offer high performance NAT with high availability that is designed to protect existing sessions and state in case of a switch failure.

ServerIron switches come standard with load-balancing applications that include server load balancing (SLB), and firewall load balancing (FLB) for scaling data center infrastructure and enabling high-availability computing. ServerIron switches also provide wide-area traffic management capabilities through Foundry's unique Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) that relies on site health and load metrics to determine the best candidate for client requests.

According to the company, its IronShield security suite for ServerIron switches provides the highest measure of protection from DoS attacks of any load-balancing switch. Distributed attack floods should be proactively thwarted before applications and servers are overwhelmed and disabled. In addition, the ServerIron 400/800 systems are designed to offer wire-speed, non-blocking switching fabric, redundant management modules, and high-density Gigabit-over-Copper interfaces to offer high-performance server connectivity.

"With the release of TrafficWorks IronWare 8.0R, we have provided exceptional value to our customers," said Bobby Johnson, president and CEO of Foundry Networks. "ServerIron 400/800 systems provide comprehensive Layer 2-7 functionality in a compact modular design with high density gigabit copper connectivity to the server farm."

Availability and pricing
TrafficWorks IronWare 8.0R will be generally available this month.

TrafficWorks IronWare 8.0R comes installed on ServerIron 400 and ServerIron 800 switches and can be ordered as an upgrade for existing customers. U.S. pricing is $14,995.

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