In this second installment of our quick intro (see part I), I thought I would cover some of the performance features of the SRX.  On this blog, I will be speaking primarily about the SRX 100 and SRX 210.  For obviously financial reasons, I will not be covering information on the higher models as I doubt I’ll be working on one of those any time soon.  Fortunately, one of the best features of the SRX series is that, unlike other platforms, the base functionality remains the same despite going to a higher model (e. g. SRX 500 or something).  This means that setting up, for example, an IPSEC VPN on a higher end SRX is the exact same as it would be for a 100 or a 210.  This is a tremendous advantage over competing platforms that require to you to learn an entirely new interface (GUI or command line) the higher up their line you go. 

Anyway, let’s get on with the performance metrics.

For the SRX 100:

For the SRX 210, we see about a 10% performance increase.

** All SRX models come in at least two modes:  Standard and High Memory.  The SRX 100 and SRX 210 both come standard with 512MB of RAM.  High memory mode gives them 1GB of RAM.  In order to use any of the Unified Threat Management (UTM) features (e. g. anti-virus, etc.) you MUST have the high memory mode model.  Furthermore, the SRX 100 can be upgraded from 512MB to 1GB by purchasing an unlock key; however, all other models are hardware locked – meaning they cannot be upgraded.  Therefore, it is the recommendation of this blog author that you always purchase the high memory mode model.  It may cost a few more bucks, but you always have the option of purchasing the UTM features later if you wish.  If you get the standard mode model, you cannot upgrade (unless it is the SRX 100) and you cannot use any of the UTM stuff.  I’ll be covering UTM in a later post.

Getting past that, those performance numbers aren’t bad.  Especially considering the high memory mode SRX 100 is $664.99 and the high memory mode SRX 210 is $944.99 from CDW according to the website as of today’s date. 

Speaking of the SRX 210, you can get additional features such as two Power Over Ethernet ports, but I’ll cover additional features part three. 

James