Network switches, routers and appliances share a common set of requirements, including high-speed packet forwarding, intelligent flow analysis and processing, and the design flexibility to keep pace with the rapid advances in IP communications. The need for intelligent network flow processing is growing rapidly in high-speed Ethernet and IP networks along with the increasing number of network and security applications embedded within the network, such as intrusion detection (IDS), intrusion prevention (IPS), firewalls, load balancers, network behavior analyzers (NBA), test and measurement probes, web and content proxies, and many others. The network and security applications reside on dedicated computing platforms or integrated service blades within the network infrastructure elements. These multi-layer applications require both high-speed network processing for L2-L3 packet forwarding at 10Gbps and beyond, along with high-performance computing at L4-L7 for scalable content analysis and flow processing for millions of simultaneous sessions.

Netronome’s solutions include network flow processors, acceleration cards for integration with standard Intel Architecture (IA)-based appliances, and complete turnkey network appliances, all providing line-rate network throughput at 10 Gbps and beyond, while simultaneously offering the industry’s deepest level of flow analysis and deep packet inspection.

The Netronome Open Appliance Architecture provides an open application programming interface (API) for network and security application acceleration, allowing manufacturers to quickly improve the performance of existing products, accelerate the development of their next-generation applications and reduce overall development costs.

The solution enables network and security appliance vendors to increase their application performance and I/O throughput without requiring modification to existing applications or complicated programming of underlying acceleration hardware. Network appliance vendors can now focus development on their software applications, while simultaneously benefiting from hardware acceleration that significantly increases performance.

The Open Appliance Platform™ delivers line-rate performance during flow processing and deep packet inspection, providing unmatched visibility and control of traffic at layers 2-7 for 1,000,000 simultaneous flows. Netronome’s Open Appliance Architecture enables network and security application vendors to quickly take advantage of these capabilities with their current Linux®-based applications on any standard IA/x86 design.