The people over at Abit sent us over a new press release regarding a new motherboard with a built in security processor. The main applications for this type of board would be for webserver, firewall/gateway machines, and other web/network based setups. Here is the full press release sent to us:

ABIT and Cavium partner to bring low cost Security to the Server Motherboard
ABIT server motherboards integrate Cavium’s NITROX™ processor to slash the cost of security processing appliance platforms

Santa Clara, CA January 20, 2003 – ABIT Computer Corporation, a world-class motherboard manufacturer and Cavium Networks, the cost and performance leader in security processing today announced that ABIT’s SI-1Ns server motherboard is shipping with Cavium’s NITROX Security Macro Processor. ABIT’s SI-1Ns is an Intel® (NASDAQ: INTC) Pentium® 4 processor based server motherboard. Cavium’s NITROX is a family of single-chip security processing solutions with performance from 100Mbps up to 4Gbps with 1K to 40K RSA operations per second of IPsec or SSL protocol processing. ABIT’s SI-1Ns motherboard will be used in 1-U rack mount appliances for a wide variety of security appliances, such as VPN gateways, Integrated Firewall/ VPNs, SSL Webservers, SSL VPNs, Content Load Balancers etc.

“ABIT has been a pioneer in bringing new functionality to the motherboard. We strongly believe that security will become a standard feature in server motherboards for PC based security appliances”, said Edwin Lin, President of ABIT Computer Corporation. “We choose Cavium’s NITROX Processor as our server platform security processor because of its unmatched flexibility, performance and price.”

ABIT’s SI-1Ns server motherboard has one Pentium® 4 processor, two integrated fast Ethernet controllers, graphics, onboard security processor and other standard PC peripherals. The ABIT SI-1Ns server motherboard has complete open source application level software support for VPN gateways and SSL Webservers. The ABIT SI-1Ns has Cavium’s NITROX Lite CN1005 processor integrated on the motherboard that can process up to 400Mbps of IPsec traffic or 3,500 RSA operations per second. Cavium’s NITROX processor family can switch between IPsec, SSL processing or do both with a simple software change.

“The integration of Cavium’s NITROX Security Macro Processor on motherboards will bring affordable high performance security to the mass market”, said Syed Ali, President and CEO of Cavium Networks. “We partnered with ABIT to introduce a wide range of world class secure server platforms targeting the exploding VPN and secure e-commerce applications.”

With high performance Pentium ® processors from Intel ® (NASDAQ: INTC) and Opteron ® processors from AMD ® (NASDAQ: AMD), the use of standard server motherboard platforms as network security appliances is widely accepted by OEMs. By replacing current custom hardware designs with mass-market server platforms, security appliance OEMs plan to reduce their product cost while increasing product performance and flexibility.

"Bringing security to the motherboard is an exciting move by ABIT and Cavium to drive wide spread deployment of security" said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "This announcement comes as little surprise, as Cavium's NITROX products offer excellent performance for both SSL and IPSec applications across a broad range of price points."

ABITÂ’s product plans include multi-processor server motherboards with multiple Gigabit Ethernet controllers and CaviumÂ’s NITROX CN1120 processor. The NITROX CN1120 can process up to 1Gbps of IPsec traffic or 14,000 RSA operations per second. Off-the-shelf server motherboards with integrated Gigabit security will enable vendors to drastically reduce their existing hardware cost.

“With the demand of cost effective and ubiquitous security on the rise, integrating security on motherboards and server motherboards for security appliance hardware platforms is a popular trend,” said Eric Mantion, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. “Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a fundamental shift in how security appliances are built.”

Pricing and Availability:
The SI-1Ns is available today from ABIT Corporation. For more information about pricing and buying the SI-1Ns contact ABIT directly via email at: server_sales@abit.com.tw