A10 Networks’ New Virtual DDoS Solution Addresses a Critical Concern in Emerging 5G Architectures

A10 Networks (NYSE: ATEN) just announced a new software version of its Thunder Threat Protection System (TPS) solution, called vThunder TPS. vThunder TPS offers a software-based DDoS defense solution for 5G and cloud infrastructures. The announcement is relevant partly because 5G mobile operators and cloud service providers are now making the move from purpose-built hardware-centric infrastructures to be more agile and virtualized.

vThunder TPS enables service providers to build and operate elastic DDoS defenses with 100 Gbps in a single virtual appliance. The capacity can also be expanded to 800 Gbps using eight-way clustering. Thus, service providers are able to build elastic DDoS defenses that can be incrementally scaled when peak capacity is required.

vThunder TPS enables service providers to build and operate elastic DDoS defenses with 100 Gbps in a single virtual appliance.

This scaling potential is timely because 5G deployments are forecasted to be highly unpredictable in terms of both the volume and location of network loads. For example, a city might have wireless traffic of X Gbps on a regular day. If that city hosts the Super Bowl, for one day it might have 100X the wireless load, mostly concentrated in a small geographic zone. In order for DDoS protection to work in such a concentrated area—and for such a short period of time—it makes sense to have virtual DDoS protection that can be spun or down and moved to where it’s needed most. Physical appliances cannot possibly work in this kind of scenario.

“With the growth of 5G and IoT devices enterprises and service providers alike need to be ready for the next wave of larger and potentially more frequent DDoS attacks. The increased scale and sophistication of DDoS attacks has put the brakes on considering software solutions, but now with the performance of the 100 Gbps vThunder TPS that can be up to 800 Gbps in a cluster, that scale is here,” said Paul Nicholson, senior director of product marketing at A10 Networks.

“With the growth of 5G and IoT devices enterprises and service providers alike need to be ready for the next wave of larger and potentially more frequent DDoS attacks.” – Paul Nicholson, senior director of product marketing at A10 Networks

The low latency nature of 5G also makes on-the-spot and high-performing DDoS protection absolutely essential. “5G low latency is an amazing feature of the technology, but it makes the job of detecting and preventing DDoS attacks that much harder,” explained Paul Nicholson, Director of Product Marketing at A10 Networks. “vThunder TPS can keep up with the volume and speed of packets coming through the 5G network.”

A10’s news is another drumbeat in a general move towards the virtualization of network management and security functions in the context of the worldwide 5G rollout. 5G networks place so much compute and data management at the edge that overall, many previously hardware-based solutions to management networks are now being transitioned into software-based, virtualized solutions.