This Nominated Discussion Article is based on the post "what does "SWITCH" in hardware architecture mean? " by @emr_1 and responded to by @reaper .
One of my customers is using PA-3020 and thinking about replace.
When I compare the following diagrams, I have one question.
PA-3020 has dedicated "signature matching", "security processing", and "network processing" as below
Compare to above, PA-400 has ONE dedicated processor with 3 features included.
PA-3200 has THREE dedicated processors which are same as PA-3020.
Here is question.
I can see Security Processor but can't find "signature matching" nor "network processing".
Instead, I can see "switch". What this switch really does? Is this same as "network processing"??
Regards,
Emr
Solution:
The PA-3400 has a switch fabric instead of the fpga based network processor in the PA-3200, hence the relabelling
there's no FPGA's in the PA-3400 so no signature lookups on dedicated hardware
the PA-3200 slide is slightly misleading as the 3220 also doesn't have signature lookups on dedicated hardware
