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Netgate Achieves AWS Graviton Ready Designation

Written by: Esther Cheng

Date: December 19, 2023

Netgate Achieves AWS Graviton Ready Designation

We are happy to announce that Netgate® has achieved the Amazon® Web Services (AWS®) Graviton Ready designation. This is a significant milestone within the AWS Service Ready Program and underlines our commitment to delivering optimized and efficient cloud solutions to our customers.

What is AWS Graviton Ready?

AWS Graviton Ready Partners support and optimize their solutions on Graviton-based instances. The designation is only achieved after AWS technically validates the partner’s solutions for sound architecture and customer success. AWS Graviton Ready Partners help customers enjoy the price performance and energy efficiency benefits of AWS Graviton by making the adoption of Graviton-based instances easy.

pfSense Plus Software on AWS Graviton

In November, we introduced pfSense® Plus software support for AWS Graviton-based EC2 instances. This not only enables cost savings for our customers but can also boost pfSense Plus software VPN performance on AWS.

Cost Savings

By using Graviton-based instances, customers can potentially reduce Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) expenses by up to 20%. This helps streamline cloud investments and ensures top-tier security for mission-critical cloud workloads on AWS.

VPN Performance

pfSense Plus software supports Netgate’s IPSec Multi-Buffer (IIMB) engine, which increases VPN performance on Intel®, AMD®, and ARM® platforms where extended instruction support is present. IIMB accelerates cryptographic workloads by replacing some cryptographic functions provided by the kernel with accelerated functions that utilize those extended instructions.

The following AWS instance types can take advantage of this support and are available for provisioning:

  • Graviton 2: C6g and M6g
  • Graviton 3: C7g and M7g, M7gd  

Netgate's pfSense Plus software on AWS EC2 Graviton instances maximizes the performance capabilities of AWS Graviton Processors and is readily available across all regions. Customers have the flexibility to launch instances of varying sizes, ranging from 2 to 16 virtual cores.

We are grateful for the recognition by the AWS Service Ready Program and will continue to empower Netgate customers with greater flexibility and choice in secure networking solutions.