RE: IPS technology question.

From: Swift, David (dswift_at_ipolicynetworks.com)
Date: 08/30/05

  • Next message: Joseph Hamm: "RE: IPS comparison"
    Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 07:23:15 -0700
    To: <THolman@toplayer.com>, <planz2009@gmail.com>, <snort.user@gmail.com>
    
    

    You're a bit off on your PCI specs, and failing to translate bytes to
    bits.

    http://www.intel.com/design/bridge/prodbrf/25291702.pdf

    Most are in Mega Bytes (versus NIC's in Megabits).

    Even older generation 64bit/66Mhz slots supported up to 528
    MegaBytes/second. Intel claims up to 2.5GigaBytes/second, and X2 and X4
    can push that on the 133Mhz busses beyond the performance requirements
    of any NIC.

    Testing I did a few years back while working on Fibre Channel boards
    were showing results peaking at 400MB/s on the 528MB/s rated slots.
    Still this translates to 3.2Gbps, and I'm sure they improved.

    Regardless, our current limitation on an Intel single CPU system has
    been 2Gbps, and on clustered network processors we can achieve 4Gbps.

    However, some of these limitations are part of why we (and others), have
    been slow to adopt 10GigE. The 1.25GB transfer rate required is a gating
    factor, and designs require dedicated busses per card.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: THolman@toplayer.com [mailto:THolman@toplayer.com]
    Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 4:23 AM
    To: Swift, David; planz2009@gmail.com; snort.user@gmail.com
    Cc: focus-ids@securityfocus.com
    Subject: RE: IPS technology question.

    Hi David,

    A standard PCI bus (PCI-X, 133Mhz) is only capable of 1.06Gbps. This
    means
    530Mbs in, and 530Mbs out, not taking into account things like
    hard-disks,
    logging/reporting and any packet inspection, which only serve to pull
    this
    number down further.

    - Incorrect. X2 and X4 133Mhz chips are available. But this is
    misleading, as I have not yet seen a PCI card use those capabilities.

    It is architecturally impossible for a standard Intel platform to attain
    a
    throughput of anything higher than 530Mbs, let alone the 2Gpbs you claim
    below?

    - Incorrect, and inaccurate. 528MB/s is the 64bit/66Mhz spec, 133Mhz
    slots are available (and many systems are multi-bus). And in terms of
    Bits/second you must multiply bytes by 8 bits for over 4Gbps on a single
    slot/bus limit.

    A further explanation of these figures may help clear things up?

    Regards,

    Tim

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Swift, David [mailto:dswift@ipolicynetworks.com]
    Sent: 24 August 2005 15:36
    To: planz; snort user
    Cc: focus-ids@securityfocus.com
    Subject: RE: IPS technology question.

    There are varying techniques in achieving performance, and FPGAs/ASICs
    are not the only way.

    The company I work for, iPolicy Networks, put the development effort on
    the front end to optimize rules, signatures, and processing rather than
    building a better ASIC. We've been able to achieve 140Mbps - 2Gbps on a
    single standard Intel platform without FPGAs by pre-compiling the rules
    into a state engine, and pushing them down to an Intel platform.

    On the high end to reach 4Gbps we used clustered Intel Network
    Processors. Again, no custom ASICs required, just intelligent parallel
    processing, and pre-compilation with bounded rules.

    As to the total number of vendors, Gartner said last year there were
    over 700 vendors in the security space. And it seems everyone messages
    the same thing whether or not they can do it.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: planz [mailto:planz2009@gmail.com]
    Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 9:14 PM
    To: snort user
    Cc: focus-ids@securityfocus.com
    Subject: Re: IPS technology question.

    I don't get, what do you mean by "Percentage", since we have uncounted
    number of vendors/brands of IPS today.

    If you look at the technology angle, the vendors who are offering both
    Software and Appliance versions of the same IPS, falls into the first
    category. To take a look back at the market, we find only very few
    vendors, like ISS, Snort, Dragon, ...hmmm.. Can somebody help to
    fill-up the list.

    Whether it is IDS or IPS, it is important to look at the Detection
    Technology. If it cannot detect, how can it alert or prevent?

    In an IPS world, firewall plays behind the scenes; since the IDS is
    configuring the built-in firewall feature to block.

    snort user wrote:

    >Greetings.
    >
    >What percentage of the IPS systems are out there, which does not use
    >co-processors/FPGA etc..
    >
    > What percentage of the IPS systems depend on firewalls like iptables
    >and ip filter ?
    >
    >I am just trying to get an idea of what is the state of art in the IPS
    >technology space.
    >
    >Any information is appreciated.
    >
    >Thanks
    >
    >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
    -
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    >
    >
    >
    >

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    to learn more.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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  • Next message: Joseph Hamm: "RE: IPS comparison"

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