F5 Networks has announced the availability of its carrier-class firewall solution focused on delivering end-to-end security across service provider networks. The standalone carrier-class firewall supports up to 1.2 billion concurrent connections and over 20 million connections per second.
F5’s carrier-class firewall is designed to address security concerns around the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), migration to 5G and NFV networks, as well as increased security vulnerabilities affecting devices, networks, and applications.
The core networks of service providers face threats from multiple points—devices, networks, applications—while network attacks also impact the DNS, control plane, and signalling (including SIP and Diameter). F5’s consolidated portfolio of L4–L7 services, including the integration of CGNAT, provides end-to-end security and delivers a multi-layered solution to protect the application, control plane, and data plane against APTs and DDoS attacks.
5G networks have ultra-low latency characteristics to handle the growth associated with IoT. To secure future networks, service providers need to increase the agility, performance, and security of the Gi LAN. F5 offers service providers powerful performance solutions that can scale in concurrent connections and connection per seconds (CPS) to support the requirements for 5G and IoT. A recent study done by independent research firm ACG revealed F5’s Carrier-Class Firewall (based on VIPRION800) achieved up to 80 percent lower TCO than alternative offerings while providing 216 percent higher ROI.
“Service providers today are responding to the exponential growth of subscribers, data, devices, and the Internet of Things by re-architecting their networks and making sure they can scale. There are significant challenges when it comes to protecting the security of these networks,” said Mallik Tatipamula, Vice President for Service Provider Solutions, F5 Networks.
The standalone Carrier-Class Firewall will be available in the third quarter of calendar year 2016.