Skip to content

ServerIronGT C Series

ServerIronGT C Series
  • Purpose-built modular and compact (2RU) application switches for business-critical IP, Web and VoIP services
  • Choice of pre-equipped models with hardware-based SSL integration and upgradeability to meet mid-range performance needs
  • Highly-advanced acceleration, security, Web optimization, load balancing and always-on availability for business-critical applications

Overview

The Brocade ServerIronGT C Series family features purpose-built modular high-availability Layer 4-7 application switches in a stackable size form factor, and is designed for the business-critical application infrastructure of mid-range enterprise and service provider customers. These switches deliver the convenience and size of an appliance without sacrificing high availability, port expandability and performance upgradeability to accommodate growth in application traffic.

With a choice of SSL upgradeable and SSL integrated products in the family with three pre-quipped port configurations, the ServerIronGT C-Series switches offer turn-key deployment into an existing network to add application acceleration and delivery. These switches can be expanded on demand for higher port density or dual-active management modules for doubling performance. Products with hardware-based SSL integration dramatically increase the performance of secure Web transactions. Customers may add a service module upgrade for hardware-based SSL support in a switch without pre-integrated SSL management modules. This on-demand upgrade capability helps minimize the initial cost of investment while delivering investment protection as the infrastructure scales and evolves down the road.

ServerIronGT C Series Configurations

  • ServerIronGT CGx2 – Pre-equipped with 2-port GbE line module and a WSM6-1 management module leaving one open slot for expansion. Up to 50,000 L4 cps and DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second.
  • ServerIronGT CGC16 – Pre-equipped with 16-port 100/1000 Mbps Copper line module and a WSM6-1 management module leaving one open slot for expansion. Up to 50,000 L4 cps and DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second.
  • ServerIronGT C2404CF – Pre-equipped with 24-port 10/100 and 4-port GbE (copper and fiber combo) line module and a WSM6-1 management module. Up to 50,000 L4 cps and DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second.

ServerIronGT C Series with SSL Configurations

  • ServerIronGT CGx2 SSL – Pre-equipped with 2-port GbE line module and a WSM6-SSL-1 management module leaving one open slot for expansion. Up to 50,000 L4 cps, DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second, 1,600 new SSL cps.
  • ServerIronGT CGC16 SSL – 16-port 100/1000 Mbps Copper line module and a WSM6-SSL-1 management module leaving one open slot for expansion. Up to 50,000 L4 cps, DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second, 1,600 new SSL cps.
  • ServerIronGT C2404CF SSL (SI-GT-C2404CF-SSL) – Pre-equipped with 24-port 10/100 and 4-port GbE (copper and fiber combo) line module and a WSM6-SSL-1 management module. Up to 50,000 L4 cps, DoS protection against 1,200,000 TCP SYN requests per second, 1,600 new SSL cps.

The ServerIronGT C series switches are built with a compact and modular design, and includes many key data center class redundancy and resiliency features. These switches are the size of a PC-based appliance at 2 rack units in height, and feature three modular slots, hot-swappable redundant power supplies, field-replaceable fan unit, hot-swappable management and line modules, redundant management modules, and future-proof expandability and performance upgradeability to higher performance management modules. The switches are designed to minimize the initial cost of investment, and maximize the total return with on-demand scalability, expandability and upgradeability. Customers can expand port density and upgrade performance by adding a second active management module or by installing a higher performance management module.

A choice of two hardware-based SSL acceleration service modules may be added to the ServerIronGT C Series switches with configurations that do not include pre-equipped SSL capabilities. These service modules provide a path to optimize the performance of secure Web and mail transactions with dedicated hardware acceleration power:

  • SRVC-SSL6-1 – Web acceleration service module featuring hardware-based SSL acceleration and Web traffic optimization at 1,600 new SSL connections per second and 16,000 concurrent SSL connections.
  • SRVC-SSL6-2 – Web acceleration service module featuring hardware-based SSL acceleration and Web traffic optimization with twice the performance of the SRVC-SSL6-1 at 3,200 new SSL connections per second and 32,000 concurrent SSL connections.

ServerIron Configuration & Management

ServerIron provides both an industry standard command line interface as well as an intuitive, easy to use graphical user interface (GUI). Both can be used to configure, manage, and monitor load balancing, security, and acceleration functions provides by ServerIron. The graphical user interface has been significantly expanded to support a variety of new application delivery functions, and is ideal for enterprise systems managers that need to quickly configure and monitor application delivery traffic functions without having to master the more complicated command line interface.

The GUI provides a range of functions including:

  • L2-3 VLAN & Routing Management
  • L4 Server Load Balancing
  • L7 Content Switching Policy Management
  • Role Based Management Functions
  • Traffic Statistics & Monitoring Functions
  • SSL Management

View screenshots of the ServerIron Configuration & Management GUI:

Back to top

Features

ServerIron GT C Series Platform Features

  • Compact and Resilient Design: With a modular 2 Rack Unit form factor, the ServerIron GT C Series delivers flexibility of deployment in a space saving size making it simple to replace appliance products and servers.
  • Datacenter Class Redundancy: Delivering high availability and non-stop networking is of utmost importance in network application delivery. Hardware redundancy features such as redundant and removable power supplies, removable fan tray and hot-swappable modules are critical for maximum uptime.
  • Investment Protection with Expandability and Upgradeability: ServerIron products are designed for a long service life and the ability to add additional or replacement modules in the future to take advantage of new technologies and services.
  • Integrated SSL Acceleration with Service Module Upgrade: The systems can be equipped with an SSL service module that offers support for integrated full-feature SSL acceleration in the network. Choice of one- and two-processor SSL service modules is available for different performance demands.

ServerIron GT C Series Product Features

Traffic Management

  • Extensive Layer 7 Features: Rich application intelligence, including URL, cookies, HTTP headers, XML tags, SSL session IDs, request type, and SIP/VoIP traffic, to deliver application scalability, security and acceleration.
  • Superior Connection Performance: ServerIron switches deliver unprecedented application transaction performance scalable up to 350,000 connections per second.
  • Advanced Load Balancing: A rich set of methods to load balance client traffic to multiple servers to increase availability and scalability of critical applications.
  • Sophisticated Health Monitoring from Layer 2 through 7: Customizable server and application health monitoring permits rapid failure detection and service recovery to maintain maximum uptime.
  • Hardware and Software Based Hitless Failover: High availability features such as Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, multi-switch session mirroring and redundant management modules with session synchronization maximize uptime in the most critical environments.

Web Acceleration

  • Integrated Hardware SSL Acceleration: With a choice of management and service modules with embedded SSL acceleration, the ServerIron platform delivers superior performance for secure Web transactions and other SSL-enabled applications. Modules can be on-demand to minimize up front capital cost.
  • HTTP Connection Multiplexing for Server Optimization: ServerIron's HTTP connection multiplexing eliminates the need for servers to sustain large connection load. Server connection load reduction increases service performance and ultimately the cost of server upgrades.
  • Clientless Bandwidth Optimization with Compression: Using standards-based clientless browser compression to transparently condense content provided by the server on return, the ServerIron reduces bandwidth utilization and increases download times.
  • End-to-End SSL Support: For high security applications, the Web accelerators can terminate SSL, process content in the Layer 4-7 engine, and re-encrypt traffic to the back-end servers for total security and confidentiality.
  • Centralized Certificate Management: Provides added security, easy manageability and investment savings from multiple certificates. Client side certificates and revocation lists prevent illegal use and abuse of SSL applications.

Security

  • Superior DoS/DDoS Protection: Wire-speed multi-gigabit rate DDoS/DoS attack protection, including protection against SYN/ACK flood attacks up to 3.6 million TCP SYN packets per second for uncompromising application performance with robust protection.
  • Granular Application Level Rate Limiting: ServerIron switches can control amount of traffic a particular client is sending to a server, which prevents abuse and attacks while increasing the availability of applications without blocking legitimate traffic.
  • E-Mail Spam Mitigation: The switches feature advanced policy-based SPAM mitigation with. E-mail SPAM can be blocked, permitted or redirected based upon millions of good, bad or unknown IP reputation policies.
  • Advanced Web Firewall: The Web Firewall features fully inspect Web transactions to protect Web servers from buffer overflow, cross-site scripting, cookie poisoning, forceful browsing and other attacks. Server cloaking hides server and application identity to prevent targeted attacks.

Global Load Balancing

  • Global Server Load Balancing (Multi-Site Redundancy): The ServerIron switches can be enabled for this application with the premium TrafficWorks OS version to offer multi-site redundancy and scalability for IP and Web applications using standards-based DNS and IP routing.
  • Total Transparency to Existing DNS Solution: Works with the existing DNS servers left in place with standards-based interoperability to protect the investment of the current infrastructure. The ServerIron offers increased and independent scaling of the global DNS performance.
  • Intelligent Traffic Distribution and Persistence: With advanced site load distribution features such as weighted and proximity metrics, and adaptable site specific configurations can be created to provide content localization and efficient traffic delivery.
  • Secure Communication between Sites: The ServerIron utilizes a secure GLSB protocol with authentication and encryption to prevent attacks against the infrastructure global data center infrastructure.

Voice Over IP / SIP Load Balancing

  • Advanced SIP/VoIP Intelligence and Protocol Support: As more voice services become standardized on SIP, the importance of high availability increases. The ServerIron software is “SIP Aware” for maximum voice availability.
  • SIP Proxy/Registrar Load Balancing and Persistence: The ServerIron protects the SIP servers from unwanted traffic and load balances REGISTER and INVITE messages to multiple registrar servers while keeping persistence via the Call ID.
  • SIP Specific L7 Health Monitoring: The ServerIron has SIP aware health monitoring and will sends periodic SIP messages to the servers to ensure that only servers with responsive application are used for client traffic

Advanced L2/3

  • Integrated Full-Function Layer 2/3 Switching and Routing: Industry's most comprehensive Layer 4-7 switching platform with advanced Layer 2/3 switching and routing for cost-effective and simplified network design with device consolidation. Wire-speed layer 2/3 performance for traffic not targeted to the application servers.
  • sFlow Network Monitoring: Industry's only Layer 4-7 switch with hardware-assisted standards-based and always-on sFlow network traffic monitoring on application flows and Layer 2/3 switched traffic.
  • High Performance Stateful IP NAT: Deploying network address translation on the ServerIron protects servers and reduces load on the high cost firewalls

Back to top

Specifications

  ServerIronGT CGx2-SSL ServerIronGT CGC16-SSL ServerIronGT C2404CF-SSL
Management Module* WSM6-SSL-1 WSM6-SSL-1 WSM6-SSL-1
Concurrent Layer 4 Sessions 5,000,000 5,000,000 5,000,000
Application Throughput 2 Gbps 2 Gbps 2 Gbps
L4 Connection Performance (CPS) 50,000 50,000 50,000
Layer 7 Connection Performance (CPS) 15,000 15,000 15,000
SSL Transactions Performance (TPS) 8,500 8,500 8,500
SSL Bulk Throughput 500 Mbps 500 Mbps 500 Mbps
Concurrent SSL Sessions 16,000 16,000 16,000
SSL Certificates 512 512 512
DDoS & DoS (SYN Flood) Protection (SYN/Sec) 1.2 million 1.2 million 1.2 million
Pre-Equipped Number of Gigabit Ports 2 16 4
Pre-Equipped Number of 10/100 Ports N/A 16 (100 Mbps – Combo) 24
Expandable Number of 10/100 Ports 16 (100 Mbps) 32 (100 Mbps) N/A
Expandable Number of Gigabit Ports 18 32 N/A
Expandable Number of 10 Gigabit Ports 2 2 N/A
Total number of ports 12 32 28
Base Layer 3 Features Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address
Advanced Layer 3 Features (Premium TrafficWorks OS Upgrade Required) OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing
Physical dimensions 3.5"h x 17.5"w x 22"d
Weight Not to exceed 40 lbs (20 kg)
Power Requirements Single (1) Power Supply: Input Voltage and Current Power Supply Rating -70 to -40 VDC: 17A 100 to 120 VAC (auto-ranging): 8A 200 to 240 VAC (auto-ranging): 4A AC line frequency: 47-63 Hz
  ServerIronGT CGx2 ServerIronGT CGC16 ServerIronGT C2404CF
Management Module* WSM6-1 WSM6-1 WSM6-1
Concurrent Layer 4 Sessions 5,000,000 5,000,000 5,000,000
Application Throughput 2 Gbps 2 Gbps 2 Gbps
L4 Connection Performance (CPS) 50,000 50,000 50,000
DDoS & DoS (SYN Flood) Protection (SYN/Sec) 1.2 million 1.2 million 1.2 million
Pre-Equipped Number of Gigabit Ports 2 16 4
Pre-Equipped Number of 10/100 Ports N/A 16 (100 Mbps – Combo) 24
Expandable Number of 10/100 Ports 16 (100 Mbps) 32 (100 Mbps) N/A
Expandable Number of Gigabit Ports 18 32 N/A
Expandable Number of 10 Gigabit Ports 2 2 N/A
Total number of ports 12 32 28
Base Layer 3 Features Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address Supports servers on different subnets from that of Virtual IP address
Advanced Layer 3 Features (Premium TrafficWorks OS Upgrade Required) OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing OSPF, RIPv2, VRRP, VRRP-E, Static Routing
Physical dimensions 3.5"h x 17.5"w x 22"d
Weight Not to exceed 40 lbs (20 kg)
Power Requirements Single (1) Power Supply: Input Voltage and Current Power Supply Rating -70 to -40 VDC: 17A 100 to 120 VAC (auto-ranging): 8A 200 to 240 VAC (auto-ranging): 4A AC line frequency: 47-63 Hz

Optional Service Module Specifications

  SRVC-SSL-1 SRVC-SSL-2
SSL Transactions per Second* 8,500 17,000
SSL Bulk Throughput* 500 Mbps 1 Gbps
Concurrent SSL Sessions* 16,000 32,000
SSL Certificates 512 512

* Dual Active SSL Service Modules may be used for Doubling SSL Performance and Capacity

Back to top

System Options

Part Number Description
ServerIronGT C Series Base Platforms
SI-GT-CGx2 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-1 (Web Switching Management Module), one AC Power Supply and 2-port Gigabit JetCore Line Module
SI-GT-C2404CF 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-1 (Web Switching Management Module), one AC Power Supply, and 24-port 10/100 and 4-port Gigabit (copper and fiber combo) JetCore Line Module
SI-GT-CGC16 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-1 (Web Switching Management Module), one AC Power Supply and 16-port 100/1000 Mbps Copper JetCore Line Module
SI-GT-C1BP-SSL 3-slot 2U High ServerIron chassis equipped with one WSM6-SSL-1 (Web Switching Management Module with ONE BP and integrated SSL acceleration), and one AC power supply
SI-GT-C2BP-SSL 3-slot 2U High ServerIron chassis equipped with one WSM6-SSL-2 (Web Switching Management Module with TWO BP and integrated SSL acceleration), and one AC power supply
SI-GT-CGx2-SSL 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-SSL-1 (integrated SSL acceleration), one AC power supply, and 2-port Gigabit JetCore line module
SI-GT-C2404CF-SSL 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-SSL-1 (integrated SSL acceleration), one AC Power Supply, and 24-port 10/100 Mbps and 4-port Gigabit (copper and fiber combo) JetCore Line Module
SI-GT-CGC16-SSL 3-slot 2U high chassis equipped with WSM6-SSL-1 (integrated SSL acceleration), one AC Power Supply, and 16-port 100/1000 Mbps Copper JetCore Line Module
ServerIronGT C Series Line Module Options
B10Gx1 1-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Base Module (optics required)
B10Gx2 2-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Base Module (optics required)
J-B2404CF 24-port 10/100Base-TX (RJ-45) and 4-port Gigabit (copper and fiber combo) double-wide JetCore line Module
J-BxG 8-port 1000Base-X (mini-GBIC) JetCore line Module
J-B16GC 16-port 100/1000Base-T (RJ45) JetCore line Module
J-B2Gx 2-port 1000Base-X (mini-GBIC) JetCore line Module
J-B4Gx 4-port 1000Base-X (mini-GBIC) JetCore line Module
J-B16Gx 16-port 1000Base-X (mini-GBIC) JetCore line Module
ServerIronGT C Series Management Module Options (Upgrade)
WSM6-1 Web Switch Management Module with one application traffic processor and one management processor. Use this to order replacement or for inventory of a backup.
WSM6-2 Web Switch Management Module with two application traffic processors and one management processor. Use this to upgrade the performance of a GT C Series system.
WSM6 Web Switch Management Module with three application traffic processors and one management processor. Use this to upgrade the performance of a GT C Series system.
WSM7 WSM7 Web Switch Management Module. Use for spare or dual-active modules for redundancy and double performance
WSM6-SSL-1 Web Switch Management Module with one integrated SSL application traffic processor and one management processor. Use this order replacement or for inventory of a backup.
WSM6-SSL-2 Web Switch Management Module with two integrated SSL application traffic processors and one management processor. Use this to upgrade performance (including SSL) of a GT C Series system.
SRVC-SSL6-1 SSL Service Module with one integrated SSL processor. Use this to add SSL integration to a GT C Series system as a later upgrade.
SRVC-SSL6-2 SSL Service Module with two integrated SSL processors. Use this to add SSL integration to a GT C Series system as a later upgrade.
ServerIronGT C Series Mini GBIC Options
E1MG-SX 1000Base-SX mini-GBIC optic, MMF, LC connector
E1MTG-SX 1000Base-SX mini-GBIC optic, MMF, MTRJ connector
E1MG-LX 1000Base-LX mini-GBIC optic, SMF, LC connector
E1MG-LHA 1000Base-LHA mini-GBIC optic,SMF, LC connector
E1MG-LHB 1000Base-LHB mini-GBIC optic, SMF, LC connector, 150km Maximum reach
E1MG-TX 1000BASE-TX Mini-GBIC Copper,RJ-45 Connector
ServerIronGT C Series 10-Gigabit Optics
10G-XNPK-SR 850nm serial XENPAK plug-in transceiver (SC), target range of 300m over MMF
10G-XNPK-LR 1310nm serial pluggable XENPAK optic only (SC) for up to 10km over SMF
10G-XNPK-ER 1550nm serial pluggable XENPAK optic only (SC) for up to 40km over SMF
ServerIronGT C Series Premium Software Upgrade
SI-GT-TW-PREM ServerIronGT Premium TrafficWorks GSLB and Layer-3 Upgrade

Back to top

Literature

Datasheets

Applications

Solutions Guides

Case Studies

Research & Test Reports

White Papers & Application Notes

General

Load Balancing

SSL Acceleration

Content Switching

Security

Application Support

Back to top

Back to top

How To Buy

  • Interested in this product? Contact sales to learn more!
  • Contact Sales

Related Links

Awards

In The News