NetScreen First To Demonstrate IPv6 Support for Both Firewall and VPN Functions
GUILDFORD, U.K., July 8, 2003—Representing its commitment to help service providers and enterprises secure Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) networks, NetScreen Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NSCN) has announced it has defined a phased IPv6 development plan and executed the first phase delivery: availability of a NetScreen ScreenOS technology release for its integrated firewall and virtual private network (VPN) security solutions that demonstrates IPv6 support. This technology release can help service providers and enterprises define and validate their IPv6 security architectures and drive IPv6 network deployment plans with the confidence that their critical network resources can be protected.
Many organisations, especially service providers in Asia Pacific and xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” / Europe, are feeling mounting pressure to transition to an IPv6 network, which can accommodate more mobile communication, home networking, online gaming, video streaming, and other emerging applications. However, a lack of highly effective, compatible security solutions for the new network environment has prevented many from progressing deployment plans to date.
To address this need, NetScreen has made available to qualified customers a new ScreenOS technology release – the first in the industry to demonstrate IPv6 support for both stateful inspection firewall and VPN functions – and plans to continue enhancing and developing its products’ support for IPv6, providing more advanced features in parallel with customers IPv6 network roll-out plans from evaluation and testing stages to trial production and full production deployments. NetScreen anticipates the introduction of a NetScreen ScreenOS version that includes more advanced IPv6 features for pilot production deployments in the first half of 2004 and availability of a full-featured IPv6 compatible version of ScreenOS for production environments in the second half of 2004.
NetScreen’s new technology release provides encryption, firewall, denial of service protection and other core security and networking functions that exist in NetScreen’s current IPv4 compatible operating system. It has a dual-stack architecture that enables auto sensing of IPv6 or IPv4, allowing quick translation or processing of traffic in the appropriate IP-version. The technology release provides various transition mechanisms, such as NAT/NAPT, that ease the burden of converting from IPv4 to IPv6. These conversions can include “4 to 6” and “6 to 4” tunneling, as well as “4 to 6” and “6 to 4” translation. This dynamic translation and trafficking capability will enable enterprises and service providers to easily expand their networks and perform a seamless migration to IPv6 without performing an immediate “forklift” upgrade of their existing IPv4 network infrastructure.
Multiple beta customers are currently testing and evaluating the release. Jun-ichiro Hagino, Senior Researcher at Research Lab IIJ, Internet Initiative Japan, Inc. (http://www.iij.ad.jp/en/), one of Japan’s leading Internet service providers, and the first beta customer for NetScreen’s IPv6 solution, commented: “IPv6 usage is growing in Asia Pacific and Europe, with signs of growth in the U.S. With an increasing number of customers relying on IP-based technology, it is crucial to implement IPv6 security solutions. Therefore, we are very excited NetScreen is announcing plans for its firewall platform to support IPv6 capabilities. IIJ looks forward to working together with NetScreen in providing a secure, robust and reliable IPv6 network.”
“NetScreen recognises the growing need for IPv6 and compatible solutions that provide end-to-end security functionality,” said David Flynn, vice president of marketing for NetScreen. “This “first-of-a-kind’ technology release demonstrates NetScreen’s commitment to drive development of innovative security solutions that allow organisations to protect resources effectively in an IPv6 or IPv4 environment, now and in the future.”
The beta technology release is a special version of NetScreen ScreenOS, the underlying software that drives the integrated security functionality in NetScreen’s powerful purpose-built, hardware-based appliances and systems. It is compatible with the NetScreen-5XT, -204, -208 and -500 and is now available to qualified customers for evaluation.
About IPv4 and IPv6
The previous version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4, provides just more than 4 billion IP addresses, which limits the number of individual devices that can connect to the Internet at one time. IPv4 was adapted to accommodate the rapid growth of Internet use in a way that will not support some of the new applications that require dedicated IP addresses.
IPv6, as specified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is a new protocol that feeds the growing need for secure, always-on Internet connectivity. It exponentially increases the pool of available IP addresses and offers the ability to scale to virtually limitless numbers of users and Internet appliances. IPv6 also offers improved end-to-end security, quality of service, packet level support, facilitation of mobile communications and better systems management.
For more information about NetScreen products, visit:
http://www.netscreen.com/products/index.jsp
For more information about IPv6 and IPv4, visit:
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ipv6-charter.html or http://www.ipv6.org/.
About NetScreen Technologies
NetScreen Technologies, Inc., is a leading developer of integrated network security solutions that offer the security, performance and total cost of ownership required by enterprises and carriers. NetScreen’s innovative solutions provide key security technologies, such as virtual private network, denial of service protection, firewall and intrusion prevention, in a line of easy-to-manage security appliances and systems. NetScreen is located at 805 11th Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, U.S.A., and in Europe at Victoria House, Cross Lanes, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1UJ, U.K. More information on NetScreen’s products in Europe can be found at http://www.netscreen.com or by calling +44 0 8700 75 00 00.