April 24, 2008

Testing a security gateway from Doctor Web, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems has proven its reliability under toughest working conditions.

Doctor Web, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems have successfully completed testing a brand-new security gateway featuring software of both companies. The testing has confirmed that the gateway run on the Sun Fire Х4150 platform enhanced by Dr.Web for Unix mail server and Dr.Web for Internet gateways Unix provides reliable protection against viruses and spam under toughest conditions and may come in handy for companies of different scale at low cost.

Nowadays information security is one of the key issues for almost any company. A list of threats expands every day: new viruses, spam floods, hacker attacks and data leaks. Without a reliable tool to deal with the threats, business information security becomes an urgent must. However, deployment and maintenance of latest security solutions require high costs and qualification of IT security staff.

A security gateway is often the best ways to sort out the problem. The gateway is an appliance configured by IT-security experts, so all its functions come out of the box. Such a solution decreases the total cost of maintaining security for protocols typically used to spread viruses and spam. The product line of appliances is intended for various types of business and that contributes to the value engineering. That’s why determining optimal server configurations for various user groups was one of the most important outcomes of the testing.

The tests showed that the security gateway created by Doctor Web, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems was capable of processing up to 30 messages per second in maximum load tests as well as during the entire testing cycle. The performance figure doesn't seem to be very high but it is sufficient for using the appliance in companies of different scale. It has been calculated that 30 messages per second is enough for a company of up to 250 employees with spam reaching 90 per cent of its mail traffic.

The high efficiency is due to unique features of Dr.Web solutions that use latest award-winning security technologies as well as to the hardware configuration of Sun Fire X4150 powered by Dual Core Intel Xeon processors. The appliance runs Solaris 10 which alone reduces TCO and ensures highest performance.

The solution is unique because it has a high performance margin even with an inexpensive 3GHz dual core Intel Xeon 5160 which means that it can be used under various conditions with no data losses or traffic processing delays critical to many business routines.

The project has become another evidence of companies commitment to supply their customers with top quality products. The successful implementation of the project brings Doctor Web, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems to the new level of cooperation so that they can offer their customers a number of new services. The testbed was provided by Doctor Web, Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. A test network built using Sun Fire Х4150 servers (one Sun Fire Х4150 has been used as a mail server) running Solaris 10 simulated a security gateway of a company under a spam attack. However, test load of the gateway was much higher than the real one. That is a server load was not a time average typical of a particular type of a company but was maintained at its maximum. So in 24 hours a server processed much more information that it would in the real life. Dr.Web Mail Gateway and Dr.Web for Internet gateways Unix were running on the gateway server. The hardware for testing was provided by OCS distributor company. The tryout programme included companies’ software compatibility tests, loading tests and stress tests. The test-cycle time lasted two weeks. Visit the Sun Microsystems website for more details on the Sun Fire X4150 server.