Nortel Alteon Application Switches

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Layer 4-7 Switching - Nortel Alteon Portfolio

Overview

Nortel Application Switches deliver application availability, performance and security by balancing and accelerating traffic and by giving IT Managers control over their network.

Nortel Application Switches integrate routing and switching by forwarding traffic at layer 2 speed using layer 4-7 information. They are designed from the ground up to optimize networks for application performance. Built around the Nortel’s patented, distributed processing Virtual Matrix Architecture, these switches provide uncompromising performance and value. With virtualization support, the Nortel Application Switch allows service providers to efficiently enable differentiated services for enterprise businesses.

Application Switches are commonly used in server farms, data centers, web hosting sites or wherever availability, performance and security are required. Nortel's Application Switches have been optimized to work with applications from leading vendors including Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, and SAP.

Nortel Application Switches are available in five models.

	3408E	2424E	2424-SSL E	2216E	2208E
Application Switches
Total Ports	12	28	28	18	10
10/100 BASE-T	-	24	24	16	8
10/100/1000 BASE-T	8	-	-	-	-
SFP-GBIC (Fiber or Copper GE)	4	4	4	2	2
IP Routing Interfaces	256	256	256	256	256
Virtual Server Support	1,024	1,024	1,024	1,024	1,024
Real Server Support	1,024	1,024	1,024	1,024	1,024
Policy Filters	2,048	2,048	2,048	2,048	2,048
Concurrent Sessions	4M	4M	4M	2M	1M
Layer 7 Performance (sessions/second)	51K*	51K*	51K*	30K*	15K*
Layer 4 Performance (sessions/second)	110K*	110K*	110K*	40K*	20K*
Integrated SSL Acceleration (tps.)	No	No	Base: 300 Max: 1000	No	No
Integrated SSL VPN	No	No	50-1,000 concurrent users***	No	No
Height (inches/RU)	1.75/1	1.75/1	1.75/1	1.75/1	1.75/1
DC power option	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
"Real-world" testing scenarios with zero session loss "Real-world" testing scenarios **50 users included, license required for 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 user options

Key Features:

Increases productivity by optimizing and accelerating applications
Reduces infrastructure costs by allowing resources to be used to their fullest capacity
Reduces downtime and loss of productivity by preventing denial of service attacks
Secures data blocking intrusion attempts by integrating Symantec's Intelligent Network Protection™ technology into the switch
Provides high availability through instant fail-over when a server, site or WAN link becomes unavailable
Puts IT back in control by identifying and managing application traffic and by providing extensive tools for application identification, prioritization, redirection, rate limiting, and shaping
Secures and accelerates traffic with integrated secure sockets layer (SSL) acceleration, multiplexing and compression
Enables service providers and large enterprises to easily manage complex networks via virtualized switch management

Features & Benefits

What’s New?

Nortel Application Switch OS 23.0 introduces many new features, including:

Enhanced Security
- Real-time, in-stream intrusion prevention via Symantec™ Intelligent Network Protection
- Detection of latest threats automatically with Symantec’s LiveUpdate network
- Bogon (bogus IP) filtering
New application integration with support for Window’s Terminal Services, IBM’s Workload Manager and Softricity’s SoftGrid
Application Acceleration through TCP connection optimization and multiplexing
SIP support for resilient, secure IP telephony
IPv6 support
Support for converged applications through Multiple Spanning Tree (MSTP) and Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) protocols
Wireless support through Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
Data Center Virtualization support - Management Virtualization
Open Application Programming Interface
Enhanced Global Server Load Balancing

Major Application Switch features

Application Security

Symantec Intelligent Network Protection with deep packet inspection
Extensive denial of service (DoS) protection (TCP, IP, UDP, ICMP)
Bogus IP (Bogon) filtering
Detect and block rogue applications – P2P, IM and more
High-profile worm and threat protection
Peer-to-Peer traffic inspection, redirection, bandwidth rate limiting
Enforcement point for the Nortel Threat Prevention System (TPS)
SSL VPN remote access
SSL acceleration offload and load balancing
Firewall load balancing
Intrusion Detection System (IDS) load balancing
Virtual Private Network (VPN) load balancing
Application abuse protection
Wire-speed filtering

Application Performance

Local and global server load balancing
WAN link load balancing
VoIP (SIP) call server load balancing
Wireless Internet (WAP) load balancing
Domain Name Server (DNS) load balancing
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server load balancing
Server load balancing
Cache redirection and load balancing
Content-intelligent (Layer 4 through 7) switching
Bandwidth management, shaping and rate limiting
TCP multiplexing
Rout optimization
SSL Acceleration
Support for IBM DataPower XML acceleration technology

Application Availability

Multiple and Rapid Spanning Tree Protocols (MSTP and RSTP)
Real Time Streaming Media (RTSP) load balancing
Web Services (XML/SOAP) inspection/redirection
High availability - such as active/active or active/standby
Stateful failover with persistence
WAN link multi-homing
OSPF and BGP routing
Scriptable health checking
Support for Windows Terminal Services
Support for IBM Enterprise Workload Manager
Support for Oracle Enterprise Manager
Support for Softricity SoftGrid

Features

Advanced TCP, UDP, and IP application server load balancing support, including HTTP (persistent and non-persistent), FTP and passive FTP, SSL, SMTP, POP, IMAP, SIP, LDAP, DNS, RADIUS, RTSP, WAP, Telnet, NNTP, and others
Sophisticated server, link, and application health checking; user-scriptable to enable content verification
High-performance content intelligent switching using HTTP headers, URLs, cookies, and payload allows infrastructure optimization and differentiated services
Persistent connections using source IP address, HTTP cookies, wireless subscriber ID (MSISDN), SSL ID, or any configured headers
Application redirection for any traffic type (Web Services, streaming media, etc.)
Concurrent multi-application support
Global server load balancing to distributed servers based on health, user proximity, server weights, and response times
Intelligent Traffic Management with bandwidth management supporting Gigabit rate limiting, rate shaping, prioritization, and discard of application traffic
Sophisticated filtering rules applied per switch, per port, or per VLAN to allow, deny, redirect, or translate traffic based on source/destination IP, protocol number/name, TCP/UDP application or source/destination port, and other criteria such as TCP flags and ICMP message types
TCP/UDP application or source/destination port, and other criteria such as TCP flags and ICMP message types
Comprehensive application-layer security that protects server and network infrastructure through features such as application abuse protection, advanced DoS and Symantec Intelligent Network Protection incorporating the latest security signatures from Symantec to secure your network from a wide range of attacks
Up to 2,048 packet filtering rules
Full network address translation
High availability via Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP); supports three modes of high availability: Active-Standby, Active-Active and Hot-Standby
Hot-standby failover with in-band keep-alive and configuration updates
End-user management virtualization
Application Switch - Open Application Programming Interface
Support for up to 16 spanning tree instances or groups
OSPF, RIP, BGP v4, and 802.3ad support
Up to 1,024 virtual servers (VIP) per Application Switch
Up to 1,024 real servers supported