PRODUCT / ARCHITECTURE
Covariant filters traffic in both directions as part of the normal forwarding path. Nothing needs to reroute or activate when an attack begins.
Discuss your architecture →A SIMPLE, REDUNDANT FORWARDING DESIGN
One switch, or a redundant switch pair using MLAG or an equivalent design, connects the filter cluster to the clean and dirty networks.
Two 100G ports run as an LACP pair for redundancy. Dirty traffic enters and exits on the dirty VLAN; clean traffic enters and exits on the clean VLAN. A third, out-of-band connection handles software and configuration updates, mitigation statistics, and network bootstrap after a catastrophic failure.
The switch or router routes between the two VLANs in separate Clean and Dirty VRFs. Where physical separation is preferred, use separate routers or switches instead—for example, an edge router on the dirty side and a core switch on the clean side.
If a filter fails, traffic re-balances across the remaining filters. If every filter is unavailable, traffic shortcuts across the filter layer so services remain online. Protection should fail open, not turn an appliance fault into an outage.
DESIGNED FOR STABILITY
We deliberately minimize moving parts, control-plane dependencies, and attack-time changes. The result is a design that is easier to operate, easier to recover, and more predictable when the network is under pressure.
VALIDATE THE DESIGN