MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Array Networks Inc. today announced the results of recent testing by The Tolly Group that benchmarked performance and scaling of industry-leading NGFW virtual appliances (VAs) running as multiple instances on Array’s AVX Series Network Functions Platform. Testing showed that performance improved by up to 86 percent greater than the NGFW manufacturer’s specifications for multiple VAs running simultaneously on the AVX Series. In addition, the tests indicated that per-VA transactions per second (TPS) scaled linearly across small, medium and large instance sizes, and aggregate system throughput and transactions per second across all running instances remained highly consistent.
“The lower performance of security VAs running in standard virtual environments has always been one of the downsides of virtualizing these critical networking components,” said Kevin Tolly, founder of The Tolly Group. “Our testing of virtual, or software-defined, next-gen firewalls clearly shows that Array’s AVX Series virtualized, multitenant platform overcomes that obstacle to a virtualization strategy and provides linear scalability for future growth paths.”
Security VAs are commonly deployed on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware in virtual environments that, while providing greater flexibility, use shared resources that can limit performance through contention. A few vendors offer multitenant appliances intended to counter the drawbacks of standard virtual environments, however these solutions often utilize shared resources – with the same performance hit of standard environments – or support only the manufacturer’s VAs.
The AVX Series is an open platform that provides dedicated resources – CPU, memory, I/O and SSL hardware – for each VA, thus eliminating resource contention and providing high performance and throughput. The AVX Series supports a wide range of networking and security VAs from a diverse set of third-party manufacturers as well as open-source initiatives.
In the Tolly testing, the NGFW VAs consistently performed well above manufacturer’s specifications for the respective VA sizes. In addition, the AVX Series provides high scalability, ranging from small to large instance sizes in a mix-and-match configuration. Depending on model and VA resource requirements, the AVX Series supports up to 32 virtual instances in just two rack units (RUs). In addition, the Tolly tests showed that the AVX Series provides highly consistent throughput and TPS while under a full load of small, medium or large instance sizes.
“The vast majority of enterprise IT departments and service providers have virtualization strategies either in place or underway,” said Paul Andersen, vice president of sales and marketing for Array Networks. “With Array’s network functions platform, they no longer need to sacrifice performance to gain the agility and flexibility of virtualization, and the AVX Series offers a clear path for scalability in the future as well.”
Download a free copy of The Tolly Group report to review the complete test methodology and results.
About Array Networks
Array Networks solves performance and complexity challenges for businesses moving toward virtualized networking, security and application delivery. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Array addresses the growing market demand for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), cloud computing, and software-centric networking. Proven at more than 5,000 worldwide customer deployments, Array is recognized by leading analysts, enterprises, service providers and partners for pioneering next-generation technology that delivers agility at scale. To learn more, visit: www.arraynetworks.com.
