Brocade announces new encryption functionality for modular routers

Brocade has announced native port-based encryption functionality for modular routers. This offering delivers encryption embedded in line with the I/O ports, enabling customers to avoid the significant performance loss, operational complexity, and prohibitive cost associated with services blades or external appliances used for encryption. The new capability better enables comprehensive privacy for all data across campus, data center, and wide area networks belonging to enterprises, service providers, and the public sector.

To protect data-in-flight between data centers, branch offices, and campus buildings, Brocade added highest level of encryption, IPsec Suite B algorithms with support for AES 256-bit keys, to the family of Brocade MLXe routers via a purpose-built line module and operating system enhancements.

The new security functionality added to the Brocade MLXe routers includes both 256-bit IPsec encryption and 128-bit MACsec encryption.

“As customers tackle the data privacy challenge, they need security everywhere in their infrastructure, but especially for data-in-flight over the WAN. Historically, performance and cost have been key barriers to broad adoption of network encryption technology. By utilizing innovative, I/O-based encryption in Brocade MLXe routers, organizations can now deploy up to 44 Gbps of wire-speed IPsec encryption per trunk and over 1 Tbps per router, achieving five times the performance at a third of the cost – and without the operational complexity – of comparable solutions,” said Jason Nolet, Senior Vice-President Switching, Routing, and Analytics Products, Brocade.

The new IPsec and MACsec functionality for the Brocade MLXe routers is interoperable with third-party IPsec Suite B-capable platforms, and it complements MACsec functionality available in the Brocade ICX family of switches.

The new IPsec encryption module for the Brocade MLXe, MACsec-capable modules, and supporting software are shipping now.