News
Crossbeam Expands Its Family of Network Security Platforms
October 2011 by Marc Jacob
Crossbeam Systems, Inc. announced today that it has expanded its family of X-Series network security platforms with the X50 to address growing requirements for high-performance security within mid-size data centers and branch offices. The new platform also enables larger IT organizations with multiple X-Series deployments to easily expand their security infrastructure across the business, while maintaining centralized control over security policy and management.
The X50 platform benefits from Crossbeam’s new sixth-generation network processing blades and newly enhanced operating system (news also announced today). The new platform takes advantage of the massive scalability and best-of-breed architecture provided by the X-Series to deliver a highly consolidated security infrastructure that is capable of delivering 160 Gbps of full duplex network connectivity and 20 Gbps of real-world IMIX performance.
The X-Series platforms deploy security applications from best-of-breed vendors on an open architecture that delivers the scalability, flexibility and built-in redundancy required to intelligently and reliably manage traffic as security and network demands change. With the introduction of the X50, Crossbeam meets the full range of environments demanding high-performance security – from mid-sized enterprises looking to protect their virtualized infrastructure to service providers securing communications for millions of subscribers.
The expanded product family gives customers greater flexibility to choose the right X-Series platform for their needs. Specifically, the X50 offers customers:
· A flexible four-slot platform pre-configured for one security application, adaptable to run two applications with a total real-world IMIX performance of 20 Gbps. For a chart outlining key features of the X50 alongside other X-Series platforms, visit http://www.crossbeam.com/products/x....
· The ability to deploy best-of-breed security applications from the industry-leading security providers, including Actiance, Check Point, Imperva, McAfee, Sophos and Sourcefire.
· Centralized management with multiple X-Series platforms across the enterprise through the Crossbeam Management System (XMS) – providing IT organizations with unparalleled visibility and control over their network security infrastructure.
The X50 platform is immediately available for customer purchase with delivery this quarter. Please contact Crossbeam Systems for more details at (866) 276-7797 (U.S. or Canada only) or (978) 318-7500, or send an email to info@crossbeam.com.
Crossbeam Announces Massively Scalable Security Platform to Meet Soaring Performance Demands of 4G Mobile Networks
Enhanced X-Series Delivers the Performance and Scalability Required to Secure Growing Amounts of Mobile Data Traffic
Crossbeam Systems announced the first network security platform that can scale to meet the real-world security performance requirements of 4G mobile network operators. The Crossbeam X-Series security platform now includes sixth-generation network processing blades and a major upgrade to its X-Series Operating System (XOS 9.6) to deliver unprecedented security performance and scalability to cope with 100 million concurrent IP connections and 640 Gbps of full duplex network connectivity. With analysts predicting mobile broadband traffic to increase 35 times over the next five years, the Crossbeam X-Series eliminates security as a barrier to growth for mobile network operators.[1]
According to recent findings from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), smartphones consume as much as 24 times the data as traditional cell phones, while tablets can consume up to 122 times the data.[2] The proliferation of these smart mobile devices, coupled with the expanded capabilities of 4G networks, has created a significant capacity planning and management challenge for mobile operators. At the same time, smart phones and tablet PCs contain far more valuable data than do traditional mobile phones, which means that mobile devices are becoming a prime target for cyber criminals.
Mobile operators must not only increase network capacity to accommodate the massive growth in data traffic, they must also secure that traffic without creating bottlenecks that frustrate customers and constrain growth. The enhanced Crossbeam X-Series delivers the proven real-world performance and scalability to eliminate security as a bottleneck for mobile operators.
Enhancements to the X-Series include:
· Increased performance and consolidation
o New 9610 and 9650 Network Processing Modules (NPM) enable the consolidation of four times more network security infrastructure. Now customers can now expect to consolidate an average of 100 one-rack unit security devices and related networking hardware on a single X-Series platform – greatly reducing their data center footprint and creating a more manageable and cloud-ready security infrastructure.
o The X-Series now delivers unprecedented security performance and scalability to cope with 100 million concurrent IP connections, 640 Gbps of full duplex network connectivity, and 140 Gbps of IMIX performance. For more details on understanding real-world security performance and testing requirements, please visit Crossbeam’s Performance Resource Center.
o The blades now include 16 SPF+ 1/10 Gbps ports each, expanding the port-density of a fully-loaded X-Series by eight times to achieve 64 10-Gig ports per chassis. This enables customers to handle four times the real-world traffic volume and further extend the life of their network security infrastructure.
· Improved management and usability
o A new Crossbeam Management System (XMS) featuring at-a-glance system monitoring allows IT security personnel to quickly gauge the operational status, troubleshoot and manage capacity across multiple X-Series platforms from a single intuitive interface – significantly lowering operating costs and improving productivity. The increased consolidation benefits of the X-Series combined with these management enhancements give service providers unparalleled usability and centralized control over their network security infrastructure.
o A new licensing structure offers service providers the much-needed flexibility to only pay for the performance capabilities they currently need, and to expand as requirements change.
· Increased efficiency and visibility into traffic flows
o The integration of NetFlow monitoring into the X-Series architecture enables service providers to easily measure the status and performance of data traffic on their networks. Not only does this provide critical visibility at key aggregation points, it eliminates the need to purchase additional hardware to support this function – greatly improving the cost and management efficiency of running a high-performance security infrastructure.
o Because not all data traffic requires the same level of security inspection, XOS 9.6 includes Traffic Steering[3] built into the platform. This makes it possible for service providers to send specific traffic types, such as video or SSL, to different security services running inside the X-Series. This dramatically improves the efficiency of the system by only inspecting what is necessary to secure the network, thus optimizing processing power and lowering capital expenses.
Over 50 percent of Crossbeam’s business comes from service providers who rely on the company for delivering high-performance network security infrastructures. In the last two years, increasing data traffic volumes and the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices have made security performance even more challenging – driving the demand for Crossbeam’s solutions among mobile operators, who now comprise 25 percent of the business.