Vyatta ships open source routing appliance

Open source networking takes a step forward with enterprise-class appliance

Open source vendor Vyatta has begun shipping a mid-range firewall and routing appliance, the Vyatta 2501, which it claims offers unparalleled price-performance.

The Vyatta 2501 is intended to meet the connectivity and security demands of medium and large enterprises, but costs a fraction of proprietary alternatives.

"The Vyatta 2501 combines features, performance, flexibility, and value on high-performance hardware, making it a clear alternative in a market saturated with expensive proprietary solutions," said Kelly Herrell, chief executive, Vyatta in a statement.

The 2501 uses Vyatta's open-network operating system and has two integrated gigabit Ethernet ports for LAN connections, together with two expansion slots, one PCI-X and one PCIe, for additional LAN/WAN connectivity.

The 1U high 2501 appliance has support for internet routing protocols, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and the Routing Information Protocol (RIP).

The appliance has gigabit LAN connectivity, with an option for 10 gigabit Ethernet optical connections. The wide area network interfaces range from ADSL, up to T1/E1 and T3 connections, and can be load-balanced.

The 2501 also incorporates a firewall, IPSec and point-to-point tunneling (PPTP) virtual private network (VPN) connections, and has integrated the Wireshark network packet analysis and capture system.

Vyatta say that the 2501 is available now, starting at £1,200 ($2,347) including service and support.