The AX Series appliances from A10 Networks provide both load balancing and traffic acceleration features (i.e., hardware-accelerated SSL, TCP reuse, HTTP compression) primarily for server farms. As they are deployed in front of the server farms, their traffic inspection capabilities additionally enable them to provide basic security protection for the servers including hardware-based DoS Syn Defense and protection from protocol anomaly attacks.

A core feature of the appliances is their multi-CPU architecture and the vendor's Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS), which provides automated load-balancing between the multiple CPUs in a non-blocking fashion. Additionally, dedicated ASICs are onboard facilitating traffic handling, SSL acceleration, and switching/routing.

An additional key feature of the platform is its support for the vendor's aFleX scripting engine (previously known as the aRule Editor); TCL based scripts that enable developers/administrators to script traffic inspection rules for fine-grained control of the box's traffic redirection efforts.

The appliance itself features redundant hot-swappable power-supplies on all models; and redundant, hot-swappable, RAID 1 protected disk drives on all but the lower end offering. Appliances can be deployed as active-active or active-standby (with stateful failover) pairs.

Other features of the appliance include

- CLI or GUI management

- Support for round robin, least connections, weighted RR, weighted LC, and fastest response time load balancing

- Server health monitoring

- IPv6 support

- Support for STARTTLS (encryption used by SMTP servers)

- Support for SIP load balancing

Five models of the appliance are currently available:

- The AX 2000 boasts 8 copper Gig Ethernet ports, 2 SFP Mini GBICs, and a pair of single core CPUs (each of the other appliances has a pair of four-core CPUs). Only a single hard drive is included in the AX 2000, and the Flexible Traffic and Switch/Routing ASICs are not included (but the SSL ASIC is). The AX 2000 includes 4 GB of memory standard (as do all the other AX appliances).

- The AX 2100 is similar to the AX 2000, except that it includes 4 SFP Mini GBICs (instead of 2). Additionally, the AX 2100 includes a pair of RAID 1 protected 160 GB hard drives.

- The AX 2200 and 3100 both include 16 copper Gig Ethernet ports and 4 SFP Mini GBICs. Dual disk drives (160 GB) are included in these appliances (as are all the ASICs described above). The AX 3100 adds a pair 10 Gig fiber transceivers.

- The AX3200 is the current top of the line model, and includes 16 copper Gig Ethernet ports, 4 SFP Mini GBICs, dual disk drives, and 2 10 Gig fiber transceivers.

New features in the latest AX Series release include a new REST-style XML API for integration with external tools; support for virtual configurations (in a separate view) based on administrative domains; RAM caching enhancements; and support for hardware-based compression.

The AX Series switches are available now, with pricing ranging from $17,000 to $70,000. Visit the A10 Networks Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

E-Mail this page to a colleague
send info about AX Series

Suggest a link
for the AX Series fact sheet