Sensory Hits 10Gbps HTTP and UDP Performance for IPS

Sensory Networks, which specializes in pattern matching and acceleration software, announced that their "HyperScan" and "FastChannel" software hit 10Gbps IPS throughput, for both UDP and HTTP traffic. The performance was achieved on a standard Intel Quad-core Xeon platform, without any specialized hardware, running Snort IPS with the SourceFire VRT rule set.


HyperScan is a pattern matching engine that, aside from full PCRE support, comprises several underlying content scanning engines that leverage cache memory to scan hundreds of thousands of patterns simultaneously at multi-gigabit speeds. Each engine is unique and tailored for a different task, and tuned to deliver optimal performance for certain parts of signatures, expressions and applications. Also, an intelligent compilation stage partitions, optimizes, and transforms the signature database for use in multiple engines simultaneously, delivering both the optimum performance and complete signature support.


FastChannel is a proprietary zero-copy, context-switch free packet processing software library that manages and dynamically distributes network traffic across CPU cores. FastChannel contains many innovations that allow user-space applications to handle network traffic at performance levels comparable with kernel-space implementations.


"We are particularly pleased with our HTTP, small packet and latency performance, as these are areas that present many technical challenges for designers," said Sab Gosal, VP of Marketing for Sensory Networks. "As we look to scale beyond 10Gbps, the real power of our software centers on the fact that the same suite of software libraries can also scale down to sub-200Mbps applications while supporting a common API, feature set and integration cycle."http://www.sensorynetworks.com