Advanced Networking Software Blade

Overview

The Check Point Advanced Networking Software Blade makes it easier for administrators to deploy security within complex and highly utilized network environments making this ideal for high-end enterprise and datacenter environments where performance and availability are critical. It includes a number of advanced networking features such as dynamic routing, multicast support, Quality of Service (QoS) prioritization, ISP redundancy, and application load balancing. These features combine to optimize network and users performance by, for example, assigning a high priority to business-critical applications and users. Even with huge volumes of traffic, the Advanced Networking Software Blade efficiently manages an ever-increasing number of client connections and activities. As a result employee productivity remains high, your business is properly supported, and online experiences are positive.

Key Benefits

• Enhances security infrastructure reliability and performance
• Reduces need for routers at branch offices
• Guarantees bandwidth to critical applications
• Optimizes performance for mission-critical traffic
• Proactive management of network costs
• Improved application performance
• Intelligent traffic redirection
• Leverage of existing hardware investments
• Application load balancing that includes security policy

Features

• Advanced Routing
• Multicast Protocol Support
• Quality of Service for both encrypted and unencrypted traffic
• ISP Redundancy
• Flexible Server Load Balancing

Advanced Routing
For organizations looking to implement scalable, fault-tolerant, secure networks, the Advanced Networking blade enables them to run industry-standard dynamic routing protocols including BGP, OSPF, RIPv1, and RIPv2 on security gateways. OSPF, RIPv1, and RIPv2 enable dynamic routing over a single autonomous system—like a single department, company, or service provider—to avoid network failures. BGP provides dynamic routing support across more complex networks involving multiple autonomous systems—such as when a company uses two service providers or divides a network into multiple areas with different administrators responsible for the performance of each.

Multicast Protocol Support
Advanced Networking also integrates multicast protocol support in IP appliances, including IGMP, PIM-DM, and PIM-SM.

Quality of Service for both encrypted and unencrypted traffic
The Advanced Networking blade lets you to prioritize business-critical traffic such as ERP, database, and Web services traffic over less time-critical traffic. It also allows you to guarantee bandwidth and control latency for streaming applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video conferencing. In addition, with highly granular controls, the Advanced Networking blade enables guaranteed or priority access to specific employees—even if they are remotely accessing network resources through a VPN tunnel.

ISP Redundancy
ISP Redundancy assures reliable Internet connectivity by allowing a single or clustered security gateway to connect to the Internet through redundant Internet Service Provider (ISP) links. This feature does not require costly new networking hardware or specialized knowledge to operate. Two modes are available: Load Sharing and Primary/Backup.

Flexible Server Load Balancing
Each connection request is directed to a specific server based on one of the Advanced Networking Software Blade’s five pre-defined load balancing algorithms. The server load algorithm prevents any server from handling a disproportionately high volume of traffic. Each incoming connection request is directed to the server experiencing the lightest load.

Specifications

Feature	Details
Supported Internet Protocols	IPv4 RFC 791 ICMP RFC 792 ARP RFC 826 ICMP Router Discovery (server) RFC 1256 Router Discovery v6 (ICMP v6) RFC 2466 * CIDR RFC 1519 Static Routes Multicast Tunnels * IPv6 Core RFCs * VRRPv2 RFC 3768 * VRRPv3 (IPv6) draft-ietf-vrrp-ipv6-spec-08.txt * Requirements for IPv4 Routers RFC 1812 Quality of Service * RFC 2474 (general diffserv PHB information) RFC 3246 (EF behavior description) RFC 2597 (AF behavior description) Bootp/DHCP Relay RFCs 951, 2131 Route Aggregation and Redistribution Unnumbered Interfaces Link Negotiation IEEE 802.3ad Flow Control IEEE 802.3x Private (RFC 1918) and Public IP Routing VLAN 802.1Q Transparent mode
Dynamic Routing Protocols	RIP RFC 1058 RIP Version 2 (with authentication) RFC 1723 RIPng (IPv6) RFC 2080 * OSPFv2 RFC 2328 OSPF NSSA RFC 3101 * OSPFv3 (IPv6) RFC 2740 * BGP4 RFCs 1771, 1963, 1966, 1997, 2918 BGP4++ RFC 2545, 2858 (unicast IPv6) *
Multicast Protocols*	IGMPv2 RFC 2236 IGMPv3 RFC 3376 * PIM-SM RFC 4601 PIM-SSM RFC 4601 * PIM-DM RFC 3973 PIM-DM State Refresh draft-ietf-pim-refresh-02.txt * DVMRP (multicast) RFC 1075 *
QOS
Minimum Bandwidth Allocation	Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) algorithm. Guarantees can be set for a group of connections in aggregate, or on a per-connection basis.
Weighted Priorities	Allocates bandwidth according to relative merit as defined by business requirements
Bandwidth Limits	Sets bandwidth restrictions for non-critical network applications.
Low Latency Queuing (LLQ)	Reduce delay for latency-sensitive traffic
Integrated Differentiated Services (DiffServ)	Enables Service Providers to offer end-to-end QoS for VPN and unencrypted traffic on IP WANs
ISP Redundancy
Multiple modes	Load Sharing or Primary/Backup
Server Load Balancing/Connect Control
Server Load Balancing	Distributes network traffic among a number of servers. Supports various load-balancing methods and server availability check
Load Balancing Algorithms	Server Load, Round Trip, Round Robin, Random and Domain

* Available on IP appliances

Support

Threats to networks are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. To maintain continuity and productivity, defenses must advance as quickly to deliver the technology and features that protect the business. Check Point Services protect against emerging threats with critical hot software fixes, service packs, and major software upgrades.

Benefits

• Ensure continuous security with access to critical hot fixes and service packs
• Maximize ROI and investment with access to major upgrades and enhancements
• Increase security with the latest applications, features, and technologies

More information