Performance Analysis Of Firewall As Virtualized Network Function On VMware ESXi Hypervisor

Abstract

Virtualization technology is slowly being used to build network infrastructure called Network Function Virtualization (NFV). It takes network functions such as firewall, load balancer, IPS out of its hardware then use its software to be run on high specification server. It helps reduce vendor lock-in and help create a multiplatform network function environment. It has a lot of benefits compared to a traditional network. One of them is it can reduce the number of hardware that is used in the telecom industry. This technology runs on the hypervisor that is used for the management of hardware. One of the important components from NFV is Virtualized Network Function (VNF). In NFV, network devices are run on a server so that a firewall is needed because if an attack occurs on the network it will interfere with existing network components. This paper focuses on analyzing the performance of two firewall system, pfSense, and FortiGate. Both firewalls will run on the VMware ESXi hypervisor. It aims to determine the firewall performance comparison in normal conditions without attacks and under SYN DoS attacks. We also evaluate firewall failover capabilities. Based on the results of testing obtained that overall FortiGate has better performance. It has better ability in handling DoS SYN attack because it has lower throughput performance degradation and better FTP performance compare to pfSense. We conclude that FortiGate has best performance compare with pfSense