IronPort Systems has recently introduced its fastest Web
security appliances, capable of supporting up to 30,000 end-users
with a single device. Promising up to 100 percent improvement
in speed compared to its previous models, the company’s new
S-Series hardware platforms feature multiple processors running its
flagship AsyncOS which offers Web Reputation Filters and multiple
anti-malware scanning engines running in parallel to eliminate
performance degradation and end-user latency.
Hardware upgrades to the S-Series product line include the
S660 which is designed for large enterprise data centers and has
the ability to support up to 30,000 users from a single box and the
S360 aimed at the medium-sized enterprises with support for up to
10,000 end-users. Additionally, the company has introduced the S160
which extends its Web security solutions to the small and mid-sized
business market.
Because of the growth in Web traffic, enterprises need to ensure
network security while not adversely impacting the end-users'
experience accessing the Web. The company’s new Web
appliances utilize multi-core scanning combined with its flagship
Dynamic Vectoring and Streaming (DVS) technology to examine
potential threats with minimal or no performance degradation or
end-user latency. Multi-core scanning divides security tasks across
all available processor cores, allowing more processing to be done
in parallel to reduce latency and improve scalability.
"According to a recent industry report, less than 30 percent of
enterprise networks employ dedicated secure Web gateways. As a
result, we believe there will be a tremendous demand for Web
security appliances as Internet traffic grows and malware threats
increase," said Tom Gillis, vice president of marketing at Cisco.
"The expansion of the S-Series product family gives us a breadth of
products that are right sized and right priced to meet the needs of
organizations of any size. With the ability to serve more end-users
with a single device, these products also help enterprises reduce
power and space requirements," informs Gillis.
The new appliances promise deployment of fewer boxes and less
power consumption to support greener data center initiatives
thereby resulting in an increased return on investment. A single
S-Series secure Web gateway promises to replace three comparable
appliances from competing vendors.
The appliances are designed to provide smaller enterprises a
similar level of protection that they offer to large enterprises.
The S160 is a small appliance – taking up only a single rack
unit – but incorporates the same powerful Web security
capabilities as other IronPort S-Series devices.