Recently, Hillstone announced the release of its Application Delivery Controller (ADC) version 2.8. This release offers new models that address high-volume, high-performance environments, and introduces several key feature enhancements including clustering.
Released in mid-2020, Hillstone’s AX-Series ADCs offer flexible load balancing options and provide website and application acceleration. Hardware-based SSL processing is available to offload compute workload from servers for better performance and to allow full inspection of traffic for improved security. In addition, the AX-Series supports full-featured, low-impact IPv6 migration, and works with Hillstone’s next generation firewalls and other security products for end-to-end security.
In version 2.8, Hillstone’s ADC gains two new 2U models designed for high performance. The AX6060 model offers 120 Gbps L4 throughput and 60 million concurrent connections and offers four expansion slots to accommodate a variety of interfaces. The AX6060S model includes all the capabilities of the AX6060 with hardware-based SSL processing.
New Features and Enhancements
New Load Balancing Options: The AX Series provides flexible Layer 4 to 7 server load balancing (SLB), link load balancing (LLB) and global server load balancing (GSLB) to help ensure application availability and business continuity. New in version 2.8 is ISP-based link load balancing as well as new ISO8583-compatible message-based load balancing (MBLB), which is widely used by financial institutions.
Clustering for High Availability and Scalability: GSLB now supports clustering across multiple data centers, and SLB supports clustering of up to 32 devices within a single data center. The quick failover afforded by clustering helps assure scalability, high availability and business continuity.
SSL Offload for TCPS: Version 2.8 adds SSL offload capability for encrypted TCP traffic, which can significantly reduce compute and processing load on vital servers. This in turn can help improve server performance and responsiveness while assuring full inspection of encrypted traffic.
Enhancements to SSL Inspection: The latest software version offers a new exception list that can be used to exempt trusted HTTPS websites from inspection. The exceptions can also include traffic to sites that should not be decrypted, such as financial services, healthcare and similar URLs.
Supports Web Proxy: Built-in support for web access control eliminates the need to deploy and maintain a dedicated web proxy server such as nginx.
About Hillstone’s AX-Series ADC
Hillstone’s AX-Series includes 8 physical appliances and 3 virtual models. The hardware devices support up to 60 million concurrent connections and 120 Gbps L4 throughput. ‘S’ model physical appliances support hardware-based SSL processing for improved performance. The virtual models support up to 6 million concurrent connections and 10 Gbps throughput in private, hybrid and major cloud platforms. This wide range of hardware and virtual model options can address almost any use case or environment.
In addition, Hillstone’s ADC can be used in conjunction with other Hillstone security solutions to enable deep inspection of internet traffic and payloads, detecting threats and malware in encrypted flows without impacting network throughput and user experience.
For more information on Hillstone’s Application Delivery Controller version 2.8, contact your Hillstone representative or authorized reseller.
