Security Industry Benefits from Multi-Core Advances

It's pretty techy stuff, but the security sector is a big beneficiary of the emergence of dual- and multi-core processors.

Processors are the linchpin pieces of electronic wizardry that execute the instructions in a computer. As the names implies, dual- and multi-core processors marry the functionality of more than one processor in a single device, called a core. This greatly increases functionality, allows overhead to be shared, space to be saved and parallel processing tasks to be performed more efficiently. Speed is king in computing, and many security tasks are particularly computer-intensive.

Thus, multi-core can be the answer to a lot of security challenges, and recent announcements suggest that the sector is taking full advantage. The news in this e-Channel Line piece is that Check Point Software has released VPN-1 Power with CoreXL. This allows packet inspection at the application layer. The story goes pretty deeply into the bits and bytes, but suffice it to say that dual-core processing is enabling an operation that formerly was cost-prohibitive.

This Processor story describes new security appliances (a small piece of hardware into which different types of software are loaded) from American Portwell Technology. The NAR-5620/5622, which performs a number of intensive security functions, can utilize Intel's Core Duo in addition to other processors. Another new appliance from the firm, the NAR-7090, can accommodate two dual-core Intel Xeon 64-bit processors.

Still another recent announcement touching on dual core and security was made Monday by Mindspeed Technologies. The company announced the Concerto 100 Series of dual-core packet processors. The idea is that Mindspeed -- and the device manufacturers who license Concerto -- will offer dual-core functionality to vendors in the home gateway and small and medium-sized business markets. Virtual private networks with firewalls, Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) and the Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA-1) are among the security features that Concerto will support.