Today’s world of information technology is massively polarized. On the one hand there is a huge and still growing number of different endpoint devices, while on the other hand there stands a relatively small quantity of large data centres delivering applications and services to these devices. This new project addresses the security risks caused by this imbalance.



“Data centres are the critical access points of the internet. The reliability of their transmission networks is becoming incredibly important, since the failure of their services may cause financial losses, reputation damage or even security threats. Our goal is to develop technology which will protect the future data networks against DDoS attacks and other cyber threats,” says Rostislav Vocilka, CEO at Invea-Tech.



“We are working on the next generation of hardware-accelerated card supporting data processing and filtering on 400G networks,” comments Viktor Pus, project manager at the CESNET Association. It will be, according to him, the world’s first device of its kind supporting data processing at that speed. “The device will provide administrators with a completely new set of tools and features, thus enabling protection of even the most demanding high speed networks.”



The heart of the solution will consist of specialized network hardware based on FPGA technology (Field-Programmable Gate Array). High-quality results are guaranteed, thanks to the long-term experience of both Invea-Tech and CESNET with FPGA technology and high-speed networks. Together they also introduced the world’s first FPGA adapter supporting 100G Ethernet technology (COMBO-100G card), which has been successfully marketed internationally and is used by industry, governmental and academic institutions.



“FPGA technology distinguishes itself by an outstanding combination of performance, flexibility, cost and consumption. That makes it ideal for the core of this new solution,” says Petr Kastovsky, FPGA department director at Invea-Tech. “This solution will offer new features - primarily traffic filtering based on application layer information, which will significantly extend the capability to protect against modern cyber threats.”



The project, named “Technology for Protection of High Speed Networks”, will be finished by July 2017; while the adoption of 400G technology is first expected by 2018. The results of the project will be applicable to the global ICT market, especially in fields such as security, performance and administration of high speed networks. The device will be used by internet service providers and businesses providing compute capacity and storage, as well as by governmental and nongovernmental organizations running large networks.



This project is a part of the EPSILON Programme of applied research and experimental development.