Smart Network. Smart Business.

5 Reasons WhyAlteon 5224 Duet Is

Your Best Application Delivery ChoiceBuy One. Take Two.

OverviewThe data center has some well known challenges - including application availability, performance and security – problems that can be addressed using Load Balancers, or more accurately, Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) offered by various vendors such as F5, Citrix and Radware. However, take a closer look at businesses whose operations depend on agile and efficient data centers and you will see additional emerging challenges. Enterprise data centers need to scale flexibly in a cost-effective manner, ensure connectivity to current and next generation switching infrastructure, provide guaranteed reliability, be able to handle rapid growth and spikes in network traffic, and be capable of harnessing the benefits of virtualized resources and ecosystems. And of course, it goes without saying that all of these requirements must be satisfied while reducing both capital and operational expense.

The Radware Alteon 5224 Duet is a unique ADC offering specifically targeted to address all of these challenges; the very latest in next generation application delivery technology with benchmark affordability. In short, there are 5 major reasons why the Alteon 5224 Duet is your best option if you are considering expanding your F5 or Citrix load balancing resources:

Reason 1: Buy One, Get a Second High-Availability Device – for no additional charge! Reason 2: Unmatched On-Demand Scalability – with up to 16Gbps of throughput Reason 3: Highest Performance ADC Platform in its Class Reason 4: The Only Enterprise-Grade ADC with 10GE Ports Reason 5: The Only Solution Supporting ADC Virtualization

Smart Network. Smart Business.

Reason 1: Buy One, Get a Second High-Availability Device - for no additional charge!

One is good. But two is better. Radware is the only ADC vendor that offers you an additional High-Availability (HA) device for no extra charge. Each Alteon 5224XL delivers a complete set of layer 4-7 services to ensure the availability, performance and security of mission-critical applications in the physical and virtual data center. Buy one and take two with Radware’s Alteon 5224 Duet.

Radware understands the importance of ensuring the availability of your mission-critical applications – your customers, employees and partners need 24x7 service. When it comes to availability and reliability, you cannot afford to compromise – and for that reason, reality shows that ADCs are always deployed in redundant pairs. The second, redundant 5224XL device provides the added reliability that data centers need at no charge – instantly cutting the cost of deploying fault tolerant ADC solutions for any data center in half. Further, Alteon devices are built of custom-made components that ensure they perform with industry leading levels of MTBF (Mean-Time-Between-Failure). They are deployed in many of the largest enterprise and service provider networks in the world.

Reason 2: Unmatched OnDemand Scalability – up to 16Gbps of throughput

The need to cost-effectively scale your business and its underlying infrastructure is more important today than ever. As new applications are rolled-out, more users use them and the demands for overall throughput, transactions and SSL connections capacity can dramatically increase. Therefore, any application delivery solution should address the requirements of today AND tomorrow in the most cost-effective manner - and with minimal need for hardware expansions and costly reconfiguration projects.

By leveraging Radware’s “On-Demand” approach to deploying networking infrastructure, the Alteon 5224 Duet allows users to add additional capacity and features with simple license upgrades that require no system downtime or service interruption. Using a simple software key update – with no device replacement and not even device restart – the platform supports the scaling of:

•throughputcapacity–from4Gpsto16Gps•additionaladvancedfeaturesandservices(suchasglobalserverloadbalancing,bandwidth management, DoS protection and link optimization), •thenumberofvirtualADCinstancesthatcanbesupportonasinglephysicaldevice

The solution cost-effectively addresses business growth and customer demand while optimizing return-on-investment minimizing the cost of technology ownership.

The result is that you pay only for the capacity you need and, when you need more, you upgrade the device you have and thereby eliminate costly capacity planning exercises and forklift upgrades projects, and reduce the risk of ever running out of capacity.

Smart Network. Smart Business.

How the Competitors “Stack Up”The Alteon 5224 Duet can be scaled on-demand all the way up to 16Gbps in throughput. In contrast, if you were to scale from 1 to 16Gps with F5, you may need to deploy up to no less than 6 different platforms – BIG-IP 1600, 3600, 3900, 6900, 8900 and 8950!

Given the dynamic nature of today’s data centers, capacity upgrades are increasingly likely; doing so without forklift upgrades makes sense. Even the most carefully planned upgrades can go wrong. According to Gartner, revenue losses resulting from downtime for a large enterprise can total $42,000 per hour so there are major benefits to avoiding maintenance work altogether.

With the Alteon 5224 Duet, on-demand expansions don’t require scheduling of maintenance windows, device configuration, training, or the ordering of new spare parts – all of which lead to even higher costs.

•F5’sclaimed“ondemandscalability”appliesonlytosolutionsover18Gbps(beyondthecapacityrequirements of a typical enterprise) and it is a hardware-centric approach that necessitates the addition of hardware blades.

•TheCitrix“pay-as-you-grow”marketingslogansrefertolimited,non-linearon-demandscalability.Citrix NetScaler platforms can scale only in specific and limited throughput ranges, for example 1-3Gbps (NetScaler 7500 and 9500) and 6-15Gbps (NetScaler 10500, 12500 and 15500). Accordingly, if your business requires a 2Gbps device and later requires 4Gbps, unless you pay for the higher capacity device upfront, the first platform needs to be replaced via costly forklift upgrade and replacement projects.

Figure 1: 0-16Gbps ADC Platform Coverage

Radware

CitrixNetScaler

F5 BIG-IP

Numberof forkliftupgrades

when scaling0-18Gbps

0G 1G 2G 4G 8G 12G 16G 18G

Throughput (Gbps)

0

3

5

Alteon 5224

MPX5500 MPX16500MPX 7500, 9500

1600 3600 3900 6900 8900 8950

MPX 10500, 12500, 15500

Smart Network. Smart Business.

Reason 3: Highest Performance ADC Platform in its Class

The Alteon 5224 Duet offers the best all round performance metrics – compared to any other competing ADC platform in its class. It is simply the best solution for supporting traffic growth, can process more secured SSL transactions, can deliver more Connections Per Second (CPS), and serve more end-users – at a price point not even closely matched by the competition. This means that no matter how many applications/services you deploy, how many users you serve and at what time of year you are – your applications SLA and fast response time is always guaranteed for maximal employee productivity and best end-user satisfaction.

Out-Performing the CompetitorsAn examination of the performance specifications for the Duet clearly shows dramatically superior price/performance compared to any other ADC in its class.

8x more layer 4 CPS vs. F5 – delivering 480,000 layer 4 CPS

19x more layer 7 TPS vs. F5 – delivering 190,000 layer 7 TPS

3x more concurrent connections vs. F5 – delivering 12M concurrent connections

Layer 4 Connections Per Second Platform Comparison

L4 CPS

600,000

500,000

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0Alteon 5224 F5 3900 F5 3600 F5 1600

Layer 7 Transactions Per Second Platform Comparison

L7 TPS

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

0Alteon 5224 F5 3900 F5 3600 F5 1600

Layer 7 Transactions Per Second Platform Comparison

Max Concurrent Connections

14,000,000

12,000,000

10,000,000

8,000,000

6,000,000

4,000,000

2,000,000

0Alteon 5224 F5 3900 F5 3600 F5 1600

Smart Network. Smart Business.

7x more SSL CPS (1024 bit keys) vs. F5 – delivering 35,000 SSL CPS

11x more SSL CPS (2048 bit keys) vs. F5 – delivering 11,200 SSL CPS

Reason 4: The Only Enterprise-Grade ADC with 10GE Ports

Radware ADC platforms all share a common design philosophy: develop ADCs that satisfy today’s data center needs but also cater to emerging technologies; systems designed to provide a long an useful lifetime of service.

No CompetitionThe Alteon 5224XL comes fully equipped with a total of 26 ports - the highest port density in the industry:

•morethan2xtheportssupportedbytheF5BIG-IP3900(only12ports)•morethan3xthatfoundontheCitrixNetScaler9500(just8ports).

This guarantees versatile connectivity options, enabling each Alteon 5224XL to connect directly to more server farms or to ensure the physical separation of different networks without the need for intermediate switches. The result is simplified network architectures with fewer devices, reduced electrical and cooling costs, less rack space – i.e. greater savings.

Not only does the Duet generally out-perform all competing products – in terms of processing performance and port density, in addition it offers a unique feature not found on any other 4Gbps ADC on the market: 10GE SFP+ ports. Connection to existing 1GE-interface switches as well as to next-generation 10GE-interface switches is straightforward. So as switching fabric is refreshed over the next few years, from the core network to the aggregation and distribution layers, the Alteon 5224XL will continue to play well with its neighbors. As the only enterprise-grade ADC in its class equipped with 10GE ports allowing connectivity to the latest generation of switching infrastructure, your Alteon 5244 Duet investment is protected.

Figure 2: Alteon 5224XL Connectivity: 2 x 10GE + 16 x GE Fiber + 8 x GE Copper Ports

SSL Connections Per Second (1024 bit keys) Platform Comparison

SSL CPS (1024 bit keys)

40,000

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0Alteon5224

F5 3900 F5 3600 F5 1600 CitrixMPX 9500

CitrixMPX 7500

SSL Connections Per Second (2048 bit keys) Platform Comparison

SSL CPS (2048 bit keys)

12,000

10,000

8,000

6,000

4,000

2,000

0Alteon5224

F5 3900 F5 3600 F5 1600 CitrixMPX 9500

CitrixMPX 7500

Smart Network. Smart Business.

Reason 5: The Only Solution Supporting ADC Virtualization

Radware’s Alteon 5224XL is a truly advanced, carrier-class ADC that supports one of the broadest feature sets in the industry. But in addition to the features that each ADC supports, the Alteon 5224XL is capable of supporting multiple virtual ADCs on each physical device – each effectively equivalent in capabilities to a physical device. So with the Alteon 5224 Duet, you can try out ADC virtualization when you’re ready. The Alteon 5224 Duet is the only ADC platform on the market under 8Gbps that supports virtualization.

How does it work? Similar to the concept of sever virtualization, each of the physical devices supplied as part of the Alteon 5224 Duet can host a single ADC service (equivalent to a standard ‘physical’ ADC), or two ADC services or “instances” (at no additional charge) and can be expanded on-demand to support up to ten fully-independent virtual ADC (vADC) instances – where each vADC delivers the full feature set of a physical Alteon ADC.

Once using ADC virtualization, you can choose to completely avoid purchasing additional physical ADC devices by, instead, simply provisioning additional vADC instances when needed – perhaps for the support of a new application roll-out or to support another department. The provisioning of additional vADC instances is once again achieved via on-demand software license updates with no service interruption – simple and at a fraction of the cost of deploying additional hardware appliances.

The Best Value an ADC Can Deliver The Alteon 5224 Duet is a unique ADC offering specifically targeted to ensure the availability, performance and security of mission-critical applications in the physical and virtual data center. From performance to scalability to virtualization, the competitors simply don’t compare. This cutting edge, next generation application delivery technology – with benchmark affordability – provides the absolute reliability that your data center needs.

Reason 1: Buy One, Get a Second High-Availability Device – for no additional charge! Reason 2: Unmatched On-Demand Scalability – with up to 16Gbps of throughput Reason 3: Highest Performance ADC Platform in its Class Reason 4: The Only Enterprise-Grade ADC with 10GE Ports Reason 5: The Only Solution Supporting ADC Virtualization

© 2012 Radware, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Radware and all other Radware product and service names are registered trademarks of Radware in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks and names are the property of their respective owners.

Alteon 5224 Duet

customers have the option

to unlock the potential

of ADC virtualization and

realize its unique benefits

of greater operational

simplicity, increased

business agility – with no

risk and free of charge.

The Alteon 5224 Duet may

be the last physical ADC

platforms you ever deploy!

PRD-ALTDuet-SSH-01-2012/01-US