announced the delivery of the Trident 4C ASIC Ethernet switch – a 12.8 terabits/second security switch capable of analyzing all traffic at line rate. Trident 4C detects flow anomalies in real time as part of a rapid defense against cyber threats.
Network bandwidth has been increasing rapidly and security analysis has until now been forced to rely on statistical sampling. Typically, one random packet out of a thousand is analyzed, while the remaining 99.9% go unchecked.
“Over the past few years, my team of researchers has collaborated with Broadcom to apply these innovative real-time connection monitoring capabilities to develop a new generation of network security solutions,” said Reza Rejaie, professor of Computer and Information Science at University of Oregon. and director of the Oregon Network Research Group. “Now, with the introduction of the higher capacity Trident 4C, we look forward to applying these innovations at scale across the core network.”
The Trident 4C eliminates the need to compromise between performance and safety. Random sampling is replaced by inspection of 100% of traffic, even at the extreme bandwidths found in network cores. Trident 4C integrates a revolutionary and purpose-built analysis engine, capable of performing 170 billion operations per second, with the ability to detect suspicious flow anomalies at line rate. This mechanism, enabled by default, has no impact on switch operation or performance.
“Sampling-based security approaches are inherently flawed. We decided to eliminate the trade-off between security and performance,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager of the Core Switching Group at Broadcom. “The Trident 4C is a natural extension of our innovative portfolio. We started with Layer 2 switching, advanced to Layer 3 routing, and are now adding Layer 4 to 7 security as we move up the network OSI stack.”
“Arista’s 7050X4 series is powered by Broadcom Trident 4 chipsets, offering systems that today scale to 32 400G ports,” added Martin Hull, vice president of platform and cloud product management at Arista Networks. “We are excited that Trident 4C combines higher port counts with stronger security for next-generation networks.”
Key benefits of Trident 4C
- Connection-aware monitoring of over 500,000 active flows at 5.4 billion packets/second
- 170 billion ALU operations per second for advanced connection fingerprinting
- 4M state flow metrics counters defined by a programmable arithmetic engine
- 1 million exact match policy ACLs
- Suitable for fixed configuration and chassis-based designs
- SONiC and SAI preparation for rapid integration into high-capacity networks
“Our enterprise customers and service providers demand a high degree of flexibility from their core switches, especially as they continue to expand and upgrade their networks,” said Dan DeBacker, senior vice president of products at Extreme Networks. “The Trident 4C brings advanced security and more flexibility when it comes to port connectivity, scalability and capability to upgrade resources in the field, which will make it easier and more cost-effective to continue to evolve your networks as needed.”
