A Calgary security company is about to release a 10 Gigabit per second deep content inspection appliance it says is particularly suited for service providers and carriers.
Wedge Networks Inc. says its NDP-2080 can handle the needs of the most demanding data centres thanks to its dual six-core Intel 2.4 Ghz processors and 96 GB of memory.
Company CEO Hongwen Zhang admits that most carriers stick to equipment from big network suppliers such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc.
But, he said, “the reality is the leading vendors will not be able to provide this kind of solution with this kind of throughput.”
Zhang said not only can service providers take advantage of the NDP-2080, but also content providers.
Derek Silva, a research associate at Info-Tech Research in London, Ont., said the appliance would likely not appeal to the biggest Internet carriers around the world whose core networks would likely be built around the OC-768 fibre connections and capable of handling 40 Gpbs throughput.
But, he added, the NDP-2080’s 10 Gpbs performance would break a barrier stopping local or regional Internet providers from deploying deep content inspection.
“For smaller ISPs I imagine this would be a boon for them, helping them compete with client retention and to secure their networks.
In addition to major equipment makers, Wedge faces a number of startups such as Blue Coat Systems and WebSense Inc.
The 2U-sized NDP-2080 becomes the top of Wedge’s line of gateways which are based on antimalware, antivirus and Web filtering software modules. Pricing of the NDP-2080, which Zhang said starts at “north of $100,000” is based on the number of modules used.
Wedge is taking orders for the NDP-2080 now, with delivery promised in eight weeks.
The company says that the unit can plow through more than 14 million email messages an hour, up to 46 million Web pages an hour.
There’s space for two 128 Gb solid state hard drives for local storage.
Connectivity is accomplished via 10 Gigabit Ethernet and two 10 GbE SFP ports, while two redundant power supplies provide safety backup. The appliances are stackable and can be load balanced.
