Suppliers Cater to Carriers

Suppliers are banking on growing demand from IT pros for managed services, particularly in areas such as security and voice over IP (see Managed Security Services Pipe Up, Equinix Nabs New LA Data Center, and StreamShield Pressed Into Service).

Switch vendor Radware Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDWR), for one, launched a new high-end intrusion and prevention system (IPS) this week, the DefensePro 3020, in an effort to further tap the managed services market (see Radware Intros DefensePro).

The 2U 3020 fills out the top end of Radwares IPS family of products. Unlike the previous high-end 3000 box, the 3020 comes with dual power supplies and 20 ports of 1-Gbit/s Ethernet. The 1U 3000 offered only seven of these ports, along with 16 Fast Ethernet ports and a single 10-Gbit/s port.

Roy Zisapel, the Radware CEO, believes the 3020’s port density is better suited to the service provider market. “If they are offering managed services to their customers, they can physically segment the same device to 10 different customers,” he says. Each customer could use both an active and redundant port.

Redundancy and fault tolerance have also been extended. The 3020 is the vendor’s first IPS to use dual power supplies. The device also offers a new “internal bypass” feature that lets one network processor take over from another in the event of a failure.At least one large carrier, Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd., is already using the 3020. “They need Gigabit connectivity on all ports," says Zisapel, "and they need internal bypass."

Cindy Borovick, program director at analyst firm IDC, believes this could be the first stage in a broader carrier strategy from Radware: “I think that Radware is increasing the performance and flexibility of their appliances overall and this is the first step."

Zisapel would only confirm to NDCF that a range of software “innovations” are in the pipeline.

Another vendor jumping on the managed services bandwagon this week is Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP), which has overhauled its VPN-1 software (see Check Point Intros Gateway ).

Users now can set up 250 “virtual security nodes,” according to Check Point. Essentially, this means that a service provider could run up to 250 separate VPNs off a single piece of hardware. The previous version of the software offered between 150 and 200 virtual gateways.— James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-Gen Data Center Forum