AX Series: SoftAX Virtual Appliance

The AX Series family offers the widest choice of deployment options, from high performance hardware platforms with hardware off-load capabilities to the cost effective and flexible SoftADCs.

SoftAX, part of A10 Networks' award-winning AX Series Application Delivery Controller (ADC) family, is designed to meet the growing needs of organizations that require a flexible and easy-to-deploy application delivery and server load balancer solution running within a virtualized infrastructure.

Changing Computing Infrastructures

Data center virtualization (and even hypervisors running on IT professionals' local machines) enables new, comparatively low cost computing resources to be available. Deployment and testing of ADCs can now be achieved without purchase of a dedicated hardware appliance.

The SoftAX is designed to be installed on a hypervisor running atop commodity hardware or A10 Networks' AX-V appliance (for guaranteed performance).

Fastest Time to Operation

Offering the fastest deployment possible, the SoftAX software can be downloaded directly from the Internet and installed into an organization's existing virtual machine (VM) environment on demand.

The SoftAX VM is an integrated, packaged image that requires no separate operating system or application software setup. This enables rollout of an ADC system in minutes, instead of days or weeks.

SoftAX Key Benefits High performance SoftADC with speeds up to 8 Gbps Best price/performance advantage versus competitors' platforms Comprehensive upgrade paths from software versions to hardware appliances (300 Gbps+) Software image allows download and immediate deployment Unified 64-bit OS and application delivery software; no system hardening or multi-step installation Virtual Appliance is portable to another compatible host Underlying hardware can be enhanced while maintaining the same image confi guration and settings SoftAX with unique AX Virtual Chassis scaling for on-demand expansion AX-V appliance for high density SoftAX deployments on purpose-built optimized hardware Most efficient CPU resource usage, requiring only 1 virtual CPU No feature limitations; version licensed by bandwidth

Use Cases The SoftAX is ideal for certain scenarios, for example: When functionality, not performance, is required; such as “2nd tier” applications behind web servers that need high availability Ideally suited as laboratory or test equipment for network administrators and support personnel Developer test beds to encourage full usage of advanced aFleX and aXAPI scripting New applications, before traffic requires a hardware ADC (configurations can be ported at time of replacement) Service Providers offering on-demand cloud computing infrastructure with rapid deployment

SoftAX Virtual Appliance Characteristics

New flexible and dynamic architectures can now be deployed:

• Consolidated infrastructure
  • Virtualization allows multiple independent VMs to be deployed on a single shared hardware platform, such as a pair of web servers and a pair of ADCs, reducing costs
• Reduced CAPEX and OPEX
  • The SoftAX reduces capital expenditure with an initial lower price point, while also reducing ongoing costs by allowing more efficient use of resources, with multiple machines utilizing the same hardware and not occupying dedicated data center rack space
• ADC VM high availability (HA) and VM strong isolation
  • Independent SoftAX VMs ensure true HA, being separate from each other, on a single host or two different hosts
  • SoftAX VMs are completely independent software instances, demonstrating strong isolation, with no shared components; issues on one VM do not affect another

  *Application Delivery Partitions (ADPs) provide large scale multi-tenancy for AX Series hardware platforms (not available on SoftAX). **Multiple AX Series appliances (hardware or virtual) running as a single unified device.

• Dynamic provisioning
  • Under peak loads the hypervisor management software and the SoftAX aXAPI can automatically add more application servers and adjust the ADC configuration to allow more capacity
• Multiple data center flexibility
  • SoftAX Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) can direct users to the operational data center, providing data center failover and continuity
  • SoftAX can be moved between data centers and easily backed up on demand

ACOS Advantage

Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) was designed with the ability to swiftly port to other processors. This makes ACOS a suitable OS for hypervisors, enabling support without substantial re-engineering and compatibility issues.

• The only full-featured 64-bit ADC virtual appliance on the market with all feature licenses included
• As ACOS was also designed to reduce internal overhead and resource usage on the host VM, host hardware is optimized
  • Ability to run on a single CPU for maximum density
  • Efficient operation, customized to utilize only the resources required from the hypervisor, eliminating continual polling

AX Series SoftAX VMware vSphere Requirements ESX/ESXi 4.0 or higher 1 virtual CPU 2 GB RAM 8 GB storage 3 virtual network interfaces Hardware Requirements See hypervisor requirements Licenses Versions vary by price and bandwidth. Including: Lab/Developer Edition Production- Entry Level/Lab Editions: 200 Mbps and 1 Gbps Production - High-performance Editions: 4 Gbps and 8 Gbps Standard Warranty 90-day software

AX Series AX-V Appliance (SoftAX Instances Included) Hardware Specifications Compact 1 RU appliance High port density 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps interfaces Solid-state drives (SSDs) Redundant power supplies Hardware SSL support (ASIC) More Information Contact A10 Networks for availability: inquire@a10networks.com Standard Warranty 90-day hardware & software