Re: performance metrics for IPS systems?

[Massimo <massimo.mail () quipo it>]

We did some test with stress test equipment on the capability to handle 
hight traffic load with low latency on some "diffused" IPS.
I can tell you will have problem with some IPS product with that high 
load of packet. There are also commercial Gigabit IDS that lose traffic 
(doesn't slow, but lose) with that number of packet (225,000 packet/s 
can be close to a full gigabit with real packet size).

I am sorry but I have a NDA on that test and can't give you more detail.

Best Regards,
                  Massimo

On 09/01/2005 14.49, Mike Frantzen wrote:

> > I'm planning on demanding that the IPS systems perform at >225,000
> > packets/second (100% of packets inspected) with <.5ms latency per
> > packet.  Is this reasonable for an IPS?
> >    
>
> Just be careful how you measure that .5ms latency limit.  If you do a
> single ping without background traffic against an IPS that does
> interrupt polling then you'll see latency of about 1ms or 10ms
> (depending on the underlying operating system used).  That latency
> will start to drop once you have over 1000pps and will gradually
> converge towards zero.
>
> I'm not sure which IPS vendors do interrupt polling to gain performance.
> It wasn't worth it for us.
>
>  
>
> > - What is the acceptable/standard latency per packet for an IPS?
> >    
>
> Humans begin to notice latency at about the 200ms mark (call it 100ms to
> account for the return packet).  TCP behavior changes at 30-100ms unless
> the stack does round trip time measurements.  Online gamers get cranky
> at the 80-100ms mark.
>
> That being said, you probably won't find an IPS that introduces more than
> 1ms of latency.
>
> .mike
> frantzen@(nfr.com | cvs.openbsd.org | w4g.org)
> PGP:  CC A4 E2 E8 0C F8 42 F0  BC 26 85 5B 6F 9E ED 28
>
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