NetScreen Scales Up

Called the NetScreen-5000 series, the product line comes in two versions. The 5200 model can handle 4-Gbps firewall throughput and 2-Gbps VPN throughput. The 5400 model offers 12-Gbps firewall throughput and 6-Gbps VPN throughput. Both support up to 4,000 virtual LANs and provide traffic management.

Mark Halen, president and CEO of Wall, N.J.-based solution provider Angel Computer Network Services, said the new products build on NetScreen's ability to meet the reliability, performance and ease-of-management requirements of his customers in the financial, medical and enterprise markets.

With Gigabit networks now being deployed in the corporate infrastructure, high-speed security is key, Halen said.

"You need high-speed firewalls that won't produce a bottleneck going out to the Internet," he said.

The performance of the 5000 series will allow an enterprise to consolidate the number of firewalls it deploys, said Halen.

"They would have hundreds of devices to achieve what you can now do with a handful," he added.

The new product line is based on NetScreen's next-generation ASIC technology, called GigaScreen-2, said Chris Roeckl, director of corporate marketing at

Sunnyvale-based NetScreen.

"It really changes the way security processing is done," he said.

GigaScreen-2 requires little CPU intervention to process packets, reducing latency and boosting performance, Roeckl said. The architecture of the 5000 series also allows new security technology to be added easily, he said.

The 5200 device is available now, and the 5400 model is slated to be released in the third quarter. Pricing starts at $99,000.

With the 5000 series, NetScreen is taking sharper aim at the enterprise market after achieving success in the SMB market, Roeckl said.

However, some solution providers that deal in security products said the company lacks a clear market focus. And in the enterprise space, NetScreen faces stiff competition from Check Point Software Technologies and Cisco Systems, they said.

"SMB has been their focus . . . but it changes from week to week," said Rich Forsen, president of ForSense Solutions, a Herndon, Va.-based computer services firm.