Check Point Appliance Boosts IPS, Firewall Throughput

Check Point Software Technologies on Wednesday launched a new appliance designed to provide high-performance security for enterprise data centers.

The 13500, the first in a new 13000 appliance line, offers 23.5-Gbps firewall throughput and 5.7-Gbps intrusion protection throughput in a single two-rack unit. The device has a 3,200 "SecurityPower" unit rating--Check Point parlance for the capacity of a security appliance to handle network traffic. Check Point says that rating represents a roughly 50% performance boost compared to its 12600 appliance.

Paula Musich, principal analyst at market research firm Current Analysis, says the new Check Point security appliance reflects increased competition for data center security.

"There's been this whole movement to re-architect date centers to meet better meet the needs of virtualization and private cloud. ... So there's an opportunity for more security in the data center and it's all based on better performance," she says.

Check Point took advantage of advancements in silicon and hardware technologies to boost performance, Musich says.

Resiliency and uptime are major data center requirements, she notes, adding that Check Point "added high-availability options to ensure security doesn’t become a hindrance to data center performance."

[Read how security is often a difficult balancing act in "Email Encryption And The Goldilocks Principle."]

Check Point is seeing increased enterprise demand for multiple firewalls in flexible configurations within virtualized data center environments, says Fred Kost, head of product marketing at the company. The 13500 can be segmented into mini virtual firewalls -- up to 250 firewall instances, he says.

The new 13000 line fits between Check Point's 12000 and 21000 appliance series; the latter is geared more for service providers.

The 13500 is available in four pre-defined packages: Next-Generation Firewall, Threat Prevention, Data Protection and Secure-Web Gateway. The next-generation firewall comes with IPS and application control; additional functions such as URL filtering and antivirus provide advanced threat protection.

The security appliance has a connection capacity of up to 28 million concurrent connections. It also has a range of optional interface cards, including up to 26 copper and fiber high-speed interfaces.

The 13500 is available now and starts at $79,000.