Kit speeds up and secures WANs

Juniper and Riverbed launching new hardware

Juniper Networks and application acceleration hardware vendor Riverbed Technology are both launching new hardware today to help firms protect and get more value from their WAN connections at offices in the UK and abroad.

Juniper is introducing its next-generation 500 Series Secure Services Gateways (SSGs) with two models, the 520 and 550, which Juniper’s Chris Spain said are “designed to operate as either a traditional security appliance or as a secure branch router”.

The 550 and its smaller brother the 520 both have four 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN ports by default, but WAN connectivity is optional.

Meanwhile Riverbed is launching two new models in its Steelhead application acceleration app- liance range, the 100 and 200, offering 25 and 75 optimised TCP connections respectively.

Mark Lewis, Riverbed’s managing director for Europe, said, “The biggest driver for customers deploying our devices is Windows file sharing, but large firms said they needed a smaller device for their branch offices, a point also made by smaller firms.”

Recent data from Nemertes Research suggests that over 90 percent of staff are based away from their employer’s main site. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2009 half of enterprise locations will be connected to the internet, up from five percent today.

In the second half of this year, Juniper will offer intrusion prevention system (IPS), web filtering, antivirus, anti-spam, anti-phishing and anti-spyware functions for an annual subscription. This could encourage more branch offices to deploy what are termed unified services gateway (USG) or unified threat management (UTM) devices.

Observers said the demand for such all-in-one devices – designed to be managed from a central location through a web browser – is being fuelled by a lack of IT staff with the expertise to support separate “best-of-breed” devices.

Juniper’s SSG 520 and 550 are shipping now priced from £3,380 + VAT and £5,630 + VAT respectively. Optional WAN connectivity with two T1 or two E1 interfaces costs £560 + VAT, and two serial connections cost £395 + VAT.

Riverbed’s Steelhead 100 and 200 series appliances are also available now and cost £1,970 + VAT and £2,810 + VAT respectively.