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TPS 3.1 is here: Do You Have Visibility into DDoS Attacks?

Today, A10 Networks announced a new major release version of Thunder TPS software; version 3.1! I’m really excited as Thunder TPS has been gaining a lot of traction in the market; A10 has added several major accounts, including gaming providers, ISPs and hosting providers. All chose to use Thunder TPS for their DDoS protection strategy. And for good reason; the scalability and versatility of Thunder TPS is really appealing for customers with large networks and technical staff that know what needs to be done when they see DDoS attacks coming into their network.

With Thunder TPS 3.1, the life of TPS users will get even better. We introduced a host of new features that provide more visibility, programmatic control, detection and mitigation options. These visibility improvements include a vast expansion of counters that track almost any aspect of network packets it can get see, such as how many sessions are created (for both IPv4 *and* IPv6 of course) and a plethora of drop-counters… anyway, the total list is pretty long… The point is, that you can use these statistics to drill down into what is happening in your network, and what shape the anomaly has so as you can modify your policies to your liking.

Here a list of what’s new, for your enjoyment:

Programmability

  • Policy Engine provides a fully programmable centralized configuration and management engine along with access to system states and statistics to simplify enforcement of advanced application and security policies.
  • Regular Expressions (regex) quickly matches a search pattern to an incoming packet and enforce policy.
  • Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) defines custom filters. This format is widely used in packet capture tools such as tcpdump or Wireshark.
  • Enhanced aFleX TCL-based scripting functionality provides additional options to create customized policies.

Mitigation

  • Advanced rate limiting with configurable over-limit actions for TCP, UDP, HTTP and DNS to regulate the rate limit per TCP or UDP connection for granular control.
  • Enhanced protection against SSL/TLS vulnerabilities such as the recent POODLE attack, as well as SSL authentication to validate whether clients are legitimate or part of a botnet.
  • MPLS protection allows Thunder TPS to inspect MPLS encapsulated traffic.
  • High-performance Network Address Translation (NAT) support as an alternate to tunneling technologies for transporting clean traffic to other network areas.

Detection

  • Expanded packet statistics provide enhanced traffic visibility by offering over 400 global, destination-specific and behavioral counters. Counters are available through the GUI or the CLI.
  • High-speed statistics export enables granular packet statistics to be exported at high speed to third-party analytic devices, using sFlow and NetFlow based protocols. Technology partners such as FlowTraq and Genie can now receive more data to enhance traffic analysis.
  • Passive mode deployment allows deployment without affecting ongoing packet flows.

Visibility

  • Enhanced logging functionality including the common event format (CEF) open log management standard, increasing cross-platform support.
  • Enhanced GUI allows for detailed overviews of network statistics, reports, and an easy-to-use interface to define and edit policies.

Thunder TPS 3.1 is available now, for more details or try it now please contact us at sales@a10networks.

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Paul Nicholson
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November 25, 2014

Paul Nicholson brings 24 years of experience working with Internet and security companies in the U.S. and U.K. In his current position, Nicholson is responsible for global product… Read More