A10 Networks outlined its strategy, solutions, and roadmap for the 5G era
The company, which is already a leading solutions provider to mobile carriers, currently has pilot 5G deployments with tier-1 carriers worldwide, including with a major Japanese mobile carrier and an Asian Tier 1 mobile operator. With 5G, there are critical requirements for improved security, reliability and performance, through consolidated solutions, which result in lower latency, high reliability and lower TCO.
“A10 is laser focused on 5G networks. We understand the challenges network operators are facing and have invested heavily in solving these challenges,” said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO of A10 Networks. “We have partnered with key technology providers and developed a comprehensive roadmap to address 5G challenges. Our early bets on 5G solutions are paying off as we have won multiple pilot projects and are best positioned to address market needs.”
A10 said its solutions address Gi-LAN, virtualized EPC, and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) environments. A10 solutions also provide full-spectrum security and visibility for the control and user plane operations. The strategy includes both 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) or Standalone (SA):
- 4G to 5G standard compatibility and investment protection: A10 supports existing 4G and 3G network architectures and use cases for the Gi-LAN and EPC, while meeting the more demanding requirements for 5G emerging architectures. These solutions can be deployed in today’s infrastructure, but are future proofed for successful 5G deployments. This includes functional consolidation for application visibility and control, subscriber-aware intelligent traffic steering, Gi/SGi firewall with Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), GTP/SCTP firewall, integrated DDoS, and more.
- Scale for increased subscriber demand: 5G demands are inherently different than 4G, with smaller packet sizes, more throughput, and higher concurrent session counts observed. A10 solutions can scale concurrent sessions to multi-billion levels and throughput to multi-terabit levels in a scale-out cluster. 5G deployments can benefit from compact and efficient options, for example 220 Gbps in 1RU PNFs, or high performance 100 Gbps VNFs.
- Core infrastructure security: With new user plane and control plane security requirements coupled with the increased attack surface and scale brought by 5G and IoT device proliferation, more advanced, scalable and automated approaches are needed for 5G networks. To guarantee uptime, and ensure control and user plane security, components include, GTP firewall, Gi/SGi firewall, control and user plane policy enforcement, DNS protection, security proxies (SEPP), and more. Additionally, A10’s advanced 5G DDoS Protection solution includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) via Dynamic Attack Pattern Recognition (DAPR), continuous baselining, and One-DDoS for distributed intelligence, for full visibility into all packets, versus traditional sample-based only solutions.
- SDN/NFV for agile infrastructure: A10’s solutions can be delivered in a variety of form factors to meet the demands of the emerging SDN and NFV environments, for example PNFs, VNFs, bare metal and containers. These solutions are integrated with leading SDN and NFV architectures and interoperate with multiple MANO environments for faster network rollout and optimized performance and agility. A10 also provides flexible software licensing and consumption via A10’s FlexPool subscription-based capacity pooling licensing.
- Orchestration and analytics for lower TCO and reduced downtime: A10’s Harmony Controller provides actionable intelligence to manage subscriber services, meet Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) mandates and compliance, and deliver per subscriber analytics. Harmony Controller provides visibility, management, orchestration and automation.
- Eco-system partners for a broader solution: A10’s products integrate with multiple 3rd party solutions and vendors. Ranging from DevOps tools, such as Ansible, to providers of 5G solutions such as Ericsson, NEC, Tech Mahindra, and Lenovo for a comprehensive eco-system.
A10 also said it will continue to provide industry-leading scale in both VNFs and PNFs, including scale-out agile deployments with containerized solutions for virtual mobile edge compute requirements. This includes physical, virtual, and containerized offerings.
