3Com has announced a chassis-based version of its TippingPoint security switch that combines traffic-inspection duties with the scale of high-end data switching, up to 10G Ethernet.
The 3Com TippingPoint M60 will let customers consolidate intrusion-prevention system (IPS) and LAN switching in a single high-scale chassis. The M60 can be used to consolidate traffic inspection for an entire organization while maintaining security separation between groups of users.
The M60 chassis comes with seven, 10 or 14 slots — two slots are occupied by redundant management modules. Each slot holds modules that have as many as six active Gigabit Ethernet ports. Six pairs of copper or fibre ports let users mix cabling types. A dual-port 10G Ethernet card also is available for the device.
Each blade in the M60 acts as a stand-alone IPS device, similar to TippingPoint’s T-series appliances, in which network connectivity and IPS packet processing are done on the hardware. The exception is with 10G interfaces; the M60 uses 3Com’s 8800 dual-port 10G blades.
The blades run 3Com’s TippingPoint IPS device operating system and use the vendor’s Digital Vaccine updating service, letting the device identify the latest threat signatures and vulnerabilities.
The 3Com TippingPoint M60 will be available in mid-2006, 3Com says. Pricing for the device will be available at that time.
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