Accelerator Cards Unlock Network Traffic Jams

The 45NS (PMC) and 55NS (PCI) network security acceleration adapters promise to eliminate the bottlenecks on network traffic encountered in VPNs, gateways, secure routers, and firewalls. The accelerator cards offload bandwidth-intensive Internet protocol security (IPSec) processing from the host CPU and perform header analysis, payload extraction, compression, encryption, authentication, and packet assembly via intelligent packet processing. Based on the Hifn 7854 security processor, the adapters accelerate security algorithms, including DES, 3DES, MD5, SHA-1, RC4, and AES. Other features of the cards include a 64-bit/66-MHz PCI bus with universal signaling, 64 MB of dedicated memory for security session data and parameter storage, and support for full duplex OC-3 rates and 512K simultaneous sessions. The cards are available with Linux drivers and FreeSWAN IPSec stack integration software. INTERPHASE CORP., Plano, TX. (866) 630-4674.