A10 Networks Unveils New aCloud Infrastructure at VMworld

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A10 Networks™, the technology leader in Application Networking, today announced the aCloud ecosystem initiative based on its AX Series Application Delivery Controller (ADC) platform. The aCloud initiative consists of a combination of AX ADC form factors and management tools for Cloud Service Providers, enabling them to create elastic pay-as-you grow environments and billing infrastructures.

Cloud Service Providers seek to fulfill increasing computing demands as enterprises move IT resources to the Cloud for operational efficiency, increased internal IT agility and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). This need has created a critical requirement to provide advanced features for components in the Cloud, so that advantages with best of breed internal deployments are not lost.  With the AX Series' comprehensive advanced Layer 4-7 load balancing, application acceleration and security features, customers and Cloud Service Providers can rapidly build cloud environments and deploy on-demand; offering premium feature sets at a competitive price.

"With the rapid adoption of Cloud Computing, customers are turning to Cloud Service Providers to enable their business services without compromising on features and functionality," said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO of A10 Networks. "With our new aCloud ecosystem, we have made it easy for Service Providers to offer differentiated Application Networking services, going beyond simple load balancing to give their customers a range of flexible options."

The aCloud Application Delivery ecosystem includes three key components:

• AX Form Factor
  • SoftAX Virtual Machines: Software-based ADC, which can be installed on commodity hardware atop a hypervisor in less than 10 minutes; customers reduce hardware costs, deliver on data center consolidation initiatives and increase flexibility.  
  • AX Series Hardware Appliances: Enables the highest-performance Application Networking with superior reliability and energy efficiency. In addition to the comprehensive Layer 4-7 feature set, the appliances offer flexible virtualization technologies such as Virtual Chassis System (aVCS) for ~1 Tbps of scalability, and multi-tenancy with Application Delivery Partitions (ADPs) to service 100s of separate customers on 1U or 2U AX platforms.  High performance security features, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, and superior 2048-bit key processing performance for large-scale SSL environments are also built-in.
  • AX Series AX-V Hardware Appliances:  Combining the benefits of SoftAX with the resiliency and predictability of the AX appliances, AX-V offers a hybrid platform for a turnkey deployment and guaranteed performance, including VMware certification.  AX-V also boosts the performance of SSL with the included hardware-based SSL processors.
• Management Platform and Components
  • aGalaxy Management Server:
    • Highly scalable management solution
    • Streamlined operation and administration automation to reduce operating costs
    • Supports all AX Series hardware and software appliance
  • Cloud Licensing Infrastructure:
    • Enables automatic SoftAX deployment and licensing based on Cloud Service Provider policy
    • Enables a true "Pay-as-you-grow and/or go" infrastructure with integrated billing
  • aXAPI for Custom Management: RESTful XML API compliments GUI and CLI administration options to offer a comprehensive set of management functions that quickly integrate for maximum flexibility into any custom Cloud Service Provider management platform. For example, the third-party applications can simply pull statistics for remote display or react to changing server conditions by dynamically provisioning or de-provisioning resources automatically from the AX Series.
• The Cloud Service Provider: Providers offering A10's solutions can leverage components to deliver on customer requirements to power flexible and feature-rich environments. 

"ViaWest is a leader in the managed service market, and we have standardized on a combination of A10's AX Series hardware and SoftAX virtual appliances for our Cloud offerings," said Jason Carolan, CTO of ViaWest.  "We chose A10 for many reasons including tight SoftAX integration with VMware vCloud Director, flexibility of hardware and software platforms and the advanced feature set. All of these advantages directly translate to value we can offer to our customers."

"Our customers are demanding a higher level of sophistication in Cloud environments versus a few years ago," said Andrew Rosser, Research Fellow at SHI Labs.  "A10's aCloud ecosystem offers the right ADC form factor and management tools that are essential to offering a successful feature rich service."

"The AX Series hardware appliance's unique multi-tenancy features were a perfect fit for our network and customers," said Jeffrey Papen, Founder and CEO of Peak Hosting.  "Since deploying the AX Series into Peak's Always UP Network^SM we can offer advanced functionality to our customers, which allows us to provide a richer set of offerings to solve our customers' business challenges and reduce their operational costs."

Availability
AX Series hardware appliances (and multi-tenancy with ADPs), SoftAX virtual appliances, aGalaxy management software and AX-V appliance are available today. The SoftAX trial version is available for immediate download at: https://www.a10networks.com/softax_trial_license/

The aCloud licensing infrastructure will be available in Q4 2012.  To participate in the beta please contact A10.   

About A10 Networks
A10 Networks was founded in Q4 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. A10 Networks makes high-performance products that help organizations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore. For more information, visit: http://www.a10networks.com

aCloud, ACOS, aFleX, aXAPI, aVCS, Virtual Chassis, SoftAX, and aFlow are registered trademarks of A10 Networks.

SOURCE A10 Networks