Arbor beefs up service provider security

Arbor Networks has introduced security enhancements for service provider networks through the new version 3.6 of its Peakflow SP platform.

The latest version includes, among other things, a Flow Sensor device that serves as a single monitoring point providing visibility and security for thousands of routers and hundreds of thousands of router interfaces across a large Internet service provider network, said Rob Malan, co-founder and chief technology officer of Arbor Networks. "It's all about scalability, " he said. "This sensor is something that can de deployed at the customer edge, and it allows service providers to deliver broader, better security into IP-VPNs. It actually gives them back some of the visibility they lost when they moved away from services like frame relay and ATM that had extensive monitoring capabilities."

The new device extends Arbor's product reach from the network backbone and peering points to customer aggregation and edge points. In turn, Malan said it can help them make better-informed traffic engineering decisions.

The latest version of Peakflow SP also improves on Arbor's Threat Management System (TMS) device for deep packet inspection, allowing quicker, more intelligent analysis and mitigation of security threats enabling providers to quickly and intelligently mitigate security threats. Version 3.6 also can scale up to OC-192 speeds, and allows the stacking of multiple TMS devices for mitigation capability of to 6 Gb/s.

In addition, Malan said Arbor is continually trying to strengthen the ability of its systems to provide detailed--but easy to understand--threat and mitigation reports so that service provider employees working in the trenches can hand a report up to their superiors that clearly validates the ongoing investment in security tools.