Nokia Launches IP Clustering Technology

July 8, 2002 -- Networking equipment maker Nokia (Nokia.com) announced this week that it has released its patented IP clustering technology for its range of IP security platforms.

The platform enhancement, says Nokia, will integrate the IP clustering features, dynamic load balancing and active session failover, into Nokia’s secure IPSO operating system, increasing the reliability and scalability of the VPN/Firewall function and improving gateway and network availability.

Nokia says its IP clustering technology allows up to four devices to act as a single network entity, sharing one internal IP address and one external.

The company says that, specifically tailored for the needs of VPN and firewall traffic flow, its IP clustering functionality uses a protocol to minimize overhead and failover time. This, says Nokia, creates a gateway that can scale effectively with additional nodes and fails over quickly when one node fails, redistributing the workload among the others.

"Internet security has become a critical part of enterprise and service provider network infrastructures and, as a result, constant availability is a must." says Dan MacDonald, vice president of product management and marketing, Nokia Internet Communications. "The integration of Nokia's patented IP Clustering technology into our widely deployed security operating system, IPSO, offers customers truly high value functionality which will improve the overall performance of their network."