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NetEnforcer® Data Sheet

QoS / SLA Enforcement for Service Providers

	587KB
	Policy Powered Networking
	Three Steps to Policy Powered Networking
	Features and Benefits
	Product Specifications

• Increase revenue from existing infrastructure
  
• Enforce service level agreements
  
• Rapidly provision new subscribers
  
• Bandwidth monitoring, accounting and reporting

Service providers (xSPs) made large investments in infrastructure only to have the price of bandwidth become commoditized. Your profitability hinges on your ability to increase revenue from existing resources through over-subscribing network bandwidth and offering new lucrative services. These services may include tiered (differentiated) services such as "gold", "silver", or "bronze", and classes of service that deliver guaranteed bandwidth to support specific business-critical applications such as VoIP, Oracle, and Citrix.

Policy-Powered Networking

NetEnforcer on a service provider network.

Three Steps to Policy-Powered Networking

Policy-Powered Networking lets you efficiently manage subscriber traffic accessing the service provider network. The process of implementing a Policy-Powered Networking solution includes three steps:

1. Provision new subscribers

   Use the NetEnforcer to retrieve customer information from your Customer Care and Billing system (CCB) or text-based customer list. This process automatically retrieves the subscriber's SLA type and defines the minimum and maximum bandwidth limits on the NetEnforcer.
   

2. Enforce the rules

   
   Upon matching a traffic session with a subscriber, NetEnforcer forwards the packets according to the bandwidth parameters outlined in its SLA.

3. Verify/Bill

   
   The NetEnforcer sends detailed traffic information to the billing/reporting systems, including addresses, applications used, and the quantity of traffic sent. This allows you to create advanced invoicing schemes such as usage-based billing.

Features and Benefits

• Increase Revenue from Existing Infrastructure

  The NetEnforcer allows service providers to offer profitable new services that attract new customers and retain existing ones. For example, you may charge higher monthly fees for guaranteed levels of bandwidth or for enabling customers to control and monitor their own bandwidth without onsite equipment.
  

• Enforce and Verify Service Level Agreements

  The NetEnforcer enables you to enforce SLAs by assigning fixed minimum and maximum amounts of bandwidth to your customers so that they receive exactly the bandwidth they pay for-no more and no less. No longer do they pay for 256 Kbps and receive 1 Mbps.

• Rapidly Provision New Subscribers

  The NetEnforcer enables rapid customer provisioning with its superior GUIs for policy setting and integration with customer care and billing (CCB) systems and support for LDAP-based directories and text files. Save time by defining each customer only once in your customer care directory and NetEnforcer will automatically retrieve the subscriber's SLA type and apply the guaranteed minimum and maximum bandwidth limits.

• Intelligently Manage Over-Subscription

  On many networks as little as 5% of the subscribers use up to 80% of the bandwidth. Use the NetEnforcer to discover and throttle these bandwidth abusers who download KaZaA and other P2P files that negatively impact your network's performance and profitability. Define policies that limit excessive consumption so you can safely over-subscribe your services.

• Intuitive Java-based GUIs

  The NetEnforcer has intuitive Java-based GUIs for securely editing and creating policies, configuring the device and monitoring traffic. Special emphasis has been placed on ease-of-use and ergonomics so you can quickly perform maintenance tasks that enforce multiple tiers of service.

The Traffic Monitor

• Multi-layer Policy Support

  The NetEnforcer's multi-layer policy support was especially designed for the quality of service (QoS) needs of services providers. You can create a "Pipe" (super-policy) to define a customer and then define "Virtual Channels" (policies) that enable different levels of QoS for different types of traffic.

Policy Editor
The Policy Editor is used to set up QoS. Double-clicks conveniently launch editors for defining tiered services and hosts.

Monitor Network Activity

The Java-based Traffic Monitor presents real-time macro and micro views of traffic and performance from a single, easy-to-read GUI.

The server-based NetPolicy Provisioner enables your subscribers to monitor and manage their own bandwidth without customer premises equipment. Via a Web browser, business customers can access the NetPolicy Provisioner to monitor traffic consumption and self-provision traffic policies on your NetEnforcer.

The NetPolicy Provisioner

• Implement Application- and IP-Based Accounting

  The NetAccountant software add-on for the NetEnforcer collects traffic data per session, gathering information on source address, destination address, application type and policy. The NetAccountant Reporter uses the collected data to create tabular and graphical reports that assist in offering usage-based billing through third-party accounting tools from Allot partners. Reports can also be saved in a large variety of formats and customized to give them your own corporate look-and-feel.

The NetAccountant Reporter

• End-to-End QoS Delivery and MPLS Support

  To achieve end-to-end QoS, NetEnforcer uses industry-standard Type of Service (ToS) and Differentiated Services (DiffServ) protocols. Based on its classification results, the NetEnforcer can mark the outgoing packets with DiffServ values such as "Assured" or "Best Effort" to signal the entire network of the desired QoS. You can also use the NetEnforcer as an edge device in MPLS networks for enhanced traffic classification and advanced monitoring and accounting.

• DDoS Protection

  The NetEnforcer detects known types of DDoS attacks and offers a first line of defense that enhances the performance of firewalls and internal network devices. By deploying NetEnforcer, you can monitor, record, and block malicious traffic flows and alert users of imminent attacks.

• Secure Device Management

  The NetEnforcer offers a dedicated management port that is physically separated from the ports that carry your subscribers' traffic. This prohibits unauthorized access to the device and enables out-of-band management.

• LCD/Soft Key Configuration

  An LCD and set of soft keys located on the front panel of the NetEnforcer speed the initial configuration of the device. Instructions on the LCD guide you through the process and all data is entered using the four-key keypad. The LCD also shows a variety of system status messages including the current inbound/outbound bandwidth.

• Traffic Redirection Control (Optional)

  The CacheEnforcer® and the NetBalancer® software add-ons enhance your network's performance by controlling traffic flows. The CacheEnforcer reduces WAN bandwidth consumption and simplifies caching administration in a single layout to manage multiple cache servers. The NetBalancer® goes beyond traditional load balancing equipment by allowing you to define single policies that control both the prioritization of applications on the network and the distribution of those applications to servers.

Product Specifications

Interface Connections

• AC-402:

  Three 10/100BASE-T half/full duplex autosense Ethernet interfaces, including one management interface, all with RJ-45 connectors

• AC-802/SP-C:

  Two 10/100/1000BASE-T half/full duplex Ethernet interfaces and one 10/100BASE-T management interface, all with RJ-45 connectors
  

• AC-802/SP-F:

  Two 1000BASE-SX fiber interfaces with SC-type connectors and one 10/100BASE-T management interface with one RJ-45 connector

Traffic Classification (per Flow)

• IP address (with IP range, list or subnet option, host name); retrieval via LDAP or text file
• Network protocols, IP protocols and applications
  
• Dynamic port applications (e.g. Citrix, P2P, H.323, Oracle and more)
  
• Application content for HTTP (URL, content type, method, host), Citrix (published application, user name), Oracle (database name, user name), and H.323 (audio/video, CODEC)
• Protocol Authentication
  
• VLAN (ID, priority)
• ToS byte - DiffServ or IP precedence bits
• Time of day/week/month/year

Qos Enforcement

• Hierarchy of policy rules with outbound and inbound traffic management
• Minimum/maximum bandwidth enforcement per flow/VC/Pipe
• Ten levels of priorities for VCs/Pipes
• Per flow guaranteed bandwidth, burst rate, CBR (per flow)
• Maximum number of connections per VC/Pipe
• Fairness between traffic flows/users/applications
• Admission control
• ToS byte re-mark (in-profile byte/out profile bytes)
  
• "Reserve-on-Demand" bandwidth for very high priority traffic

Network Security

• Access control - pass/reject/drop
• Protection from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks
• Control number/rate of connections
• Filtering by URL and file extension (e.g., for NIMDA worm)

Cache Redirection and Load Balancing

• Policy-based connection control including cache redirection and server load balancing (optional software packages)

Configuration

• IP configuration and setup via integrated LCD and keypad
  
• Remote policy configuration via CLI or Web browser

QoS Policy Management

• Easy-to-manage, single-table view based on catalogs
• Easy expansion of VCs/Pipes (policies) to multiple subscribers
• Policy distribution from primary NetEnforcer to other units

Monitoring and Accounting

• Monitoring

  - Protocol distribution, top hosts, top VCs, top Pipes, VC/Pipe distribution, number and rate of connections, utilization, bandwidth usage with 30-second granularity and storage of historical data

• Accounting

  (via optional NetAccountant) - In-box accounting of traffic per session for all sessions; accounting using RADIUS server; powerful reporter; ODBC interface

• SNMP

  - Support statistics collection per VC/Pipe

Fail-Safe Performance (No Single Point of Failure)

• Hardware bypass
• Full redundancy support (dual configuration with hot-standby)

• AC802SP

  Dual 200W hot-swappable power supplies and power feeds

Network Standards Support

• LDAP, DiffServ/ToS (RFCs 2474, 2475, 2597, 2598), IP Precedence (RFC 791), SNMP, and ODBC

Browser Support

• MS Internet Explorer 5.5, 6.0

Dimensions & Weight

• AC-402:

  Standard 1U by 19-inch, rack mountable

• AC-601/SP, AC-802/SP:

  Standard 2U by 19-inch, rack mountable

• AC-402:

  12.1 lbs. (5.50 Kg)

• AC-601/SP:

  21.83 lbs. (9.92 Kg)

• AC-802/SP:

  25.48 lbs. (11.5812 Kg)

Environmental Standards Compliance & Certification

• EMC Directive 89/336/EEC; EN60950; ETS 300 019-2-2; ETS 300 019-2-3; IEC-68
• FCC-Part 15 Class B; UL 1950
• VCCI: 2002 Class B emission requirements

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