Application Perspective: Comprehensive Performance Comparison of layer-4 and layer-7 Smart Switches

Smart switches are still commonly used, so I studied them ~ A comprehensive comparison of layer-7 smart switch products is provided here to share with you, hoping to be useful to you. The Cisco CSS 11500 series content service smart switch is a compact modular platform that provides the most abundant layer-4-7 traffic management services for e-commerce applications. This product has a Cisco Web Service (WebNS) module that provides powerful transmission and application layer-4-7 services for Internet and intranet data centers.

With the Cisco CSS 11500 smart content service switch, enterprises can not only reduce costs but also increase productivity by optimizing data center resources. Through fast content exchange and transmission, Cisco CSS 11500 smart switches can improve the utilization, response capability, availability, scalability and security of Web sites, Server Clusters, high-speed cache clusters, and firewall systems. Cisco CSS 11500 provides ASR-state layer 5th operation redundancy, which not only restores important traffic after a fault, but also improves performance. In addition, CSS 11500 with an integrated SSL module can combine the advanced SSL Acceleration technology with the Cisco WebNS technology to optimize the switch-server architecture in a new way, this improves security and performance. CSS 11500 ensures high security without reducing site performance. It provides content-based status access control and supports security policies based on any combination of source address, target address, protocol, TCP port, or URL.

F5

F5 Application Switch provides comprehensive application traffic management. BIG-IP application traffic management running on the BIG-IP hardware platform can provide all IP-based applications and Web services with the original only Web applications can enjoy the traffic management function. In any network environment, BIG-IP can accurately, securely, economically and efficiently create and provide all IP-based applications or Web services through its powerful universal check engine and iRules.

BIG-IP application traffic management software can now be upgraded on F5 BIG-IP application smart switches and BIG-IP devices, and supports three new platforms: BIG-IP 5000 Series through its powerful application-level Transaction Layer 7th) the processing capability optimizes the delivery of applications and Web services. The BIG-IP 2400 series integrates F5's brand new Packet Velocity ASIC to accelerate site response speed; the BIG-IP 1000 series, as a cost-effective switch, offers all the features of BIG-IP application traffic management software. BIG-IP provides policy implementation, prevents attacks and virus attachment, and supports SSL Acceleration for Web services and applications. It eliminates the security risks of devices, provides additional security protection for hacker attacks, viruses, and worms, and provides uninterrupted services for legitimate traffic.

Foundry

Foundry introduced a new high-density modular ServerIron layer-4-7 system this year, and announced significant improvements to the TrafficWorks IronWare operating system to support its ServerIron layer-4-7 Load Balancing switch. The new ServerIron 450 and 850 modular switches support 10-Gigabit Ethernet. Relying on Foundry JetCore technology, high-performance network processor, and rich Application Intelligence, this greatly improves the availability, security, and scalability of key business applications. ServerIron 450 and 850 provide comprehensive application traffic and content exchange functions, including Server Load balancer, URL-based and Cookie-based switching, global Server Load balancer, and transparent high-speed cache switching.

At the same time, Foundry launched a high-performance and intelligent ServerIron GT series layer-4-7 gateway smart switch integrated with SSL Acceleration. This product combines layer-4-7 switching and high-performance SSL Acceleration functions into a compact smart switch, provides a comprehensive application infrastructure solution to achieve the maximum availability, scalability, and performance of security businesses and Web applications. These smart switches can effectively protect server groups from denial-of-service (DoS) attacks at a speed of 1 Gbit/s. They also provide excellent layer-4 7 and SSL connection performance to meet the needs of enterprise users.

Nortel Network

The new layer-4-7 Alteon switch provides powerful processing capabilities. Its new application smart switch provides telecom-grade equipment reliability and a network design without spof, the rich 4-7 Application Service capabilities provide powerful support for telecom users. It also provides network DoS attack prevention, Wan Link balancing for multiple ISPs, Streaming Media Server balancing, and smart traffic management functions.

The Alteon application intelligent switch 2424-SSL provides complete SSL functions. The ssl vpn portal function supported by the ssl vpn accelerator of the Beijing-electric network enables you to quickly extend your existing Intranet server architecture to a user group that is remotely and wirelessly moved through the ssl vpn. The application layer security features in the new version of Alteon OS include DoS protection and XML and SOAP check functions. The new Alteon ssl vpn software is designed for enterprises that use ssl vpn as the main means of remote access. The software provides dynamic access control to evaluate the security level of the client and restrict access accordingly. This version also supports automatic logout. After a period of free time, the session is automatically disconnected and all cache information is cleared.

Radware

Radware leverages the inherent "intelligence" feature of layer-4 and layer-7 Smart switches in the network to focus on network security while focusing on Server Load balancer technology, it also uses its excellent underlying hardware architecture to lay a good foundation for network security protection. The security features in Radware's Synapps architecture can provide users with high-performance and secure application-level network protection. Radware DefensePro is a new generation security device built on a dedicated high-performance security switch. It provides 3 Gbps real-time throughput traffic and performs In-depth packet inspection. It can isolate, intercept, and prevent attacks to achieve real-time and high-performance application security. DefensePro provides a combination of real-time Intrusion Prevention functions that can detect and intercept more than 1000 attack features.

The unique StringMatch Engine security accelerator of DefensePro provides high-performance in-depth packet inspection. It uses a dedicated MPC 7457 RISC processor and provides a fixed search speed of up to 16 Gbps. DefensePro provides detection and protection for over 1300 viruses, Trojans, worms, and attacks. It can perform complete detection based on the attack database, and also provides full throughput capabilities.

Safe travel all the way

China's No. 1 automobile group is a large enterprise group of China's automobile industry. Its data center adopts multi-link Internet access. FAW Group hopes that through network optimization, it can not only achieve fast content transmission, but also provide uninterrupted services for uncertain dynamic networks, eliminate network bottlenecks and comprehensively improve the firewall's processing performance, provides comprehensive and effective security protection for network devices. FAW adopts Radware's LinkProof and FireProof products to build a solution for fully redundant network applications that connect multiple links to the Internet and load balancing with multiple firewalls.

Multi-link Load Balancing for fast transmission

LinkProof is used to achieve load balancing between multiple access links, and redundant backup can be implemented between two LinkProof devices. When a line fails, the user is redirected to a normal link without access interruption.

Improve firewall Load Balancing

Server Load balancer between firewall 1 and firewall 2 is achieved through two LinkProof and two FireProof applications. Redundancy backup can be achieved between two FireProof devices. You can group firewalls based on different users and applications to maintain sessions.

Security protection module to provide comprehensive protection

The smart switch provides high-performance bandwidth management and security protection functions. It can set different guaranteed bandwidth and priorities based on layer-4-7 policies to provide services with different levels, at the same time, the security module can defend against more than 1200 common attacks, improve the overall security of the system, and share the workload of security devices such as firewalls and IDS. In this way, no single point of failure occurs in the network and network resources are optimized.