A10 Networks Thunder CGN Overview

A10 Networks Thunder CGN is the #1 ranked solution in our list of top Carrier Grade Network Address Translation tools. It is most often compared to BIG-IP Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT): A10 Networks Thunder CGN vs BIG-IP Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT)

What is A10 Networks Thunder CGN?

Extend IPv4 Connectivity
Solve IPv4 address exhaustion and extend the life of an IPv4 network infrastructure with carrier-grade NAT to ensure critical applications and services are always available and reliable.

Manage IPv6 Migration
Enable a smooth transition to IPv6 by supporting translation and tunneling between IPv4 and IPv6 networks.

Reduce TCO
High performance in a compact form factor results in lower OPEX and CAPEX through efficient rack space usage, lower power consumption and reduced cooling requirements.

A10 Networks Thunder CGN Customers

Leucom Group

A10 Networks Thunder CGN Video

Pricing Advice

What users are saying about A10 Networks Thunder CGN pricing:

"The cost to buy it initially was a single purchase price. This was a cost for the hardware and software, but we got a year of service with it. Annually, we pay them a service fee, but it's not much money."
"The FlexPool consumption-based licensing model has the ability to spin up VMs as needed for NAT, as well as their ADC, which is their load balancing stuff. We are considering that, as that is a pretty attractive feature."

A10 Networks Thunder CGN Reviews

Bruce Boardman

Network Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 12, 2020

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Extremely reliable; freeing up a lot of our IP space

What is our primary use case?

We use it for Carrier Grade NAT. We are a university with a lot of students. We use this solution to provide Internet access to students from our wireless network. Currently, we're using 2.8.1-P1 Build 11 on most of the devices. I think we might have a different build on a couple of them.

Pros and Cons

"It has freed up a lot of our IP space and has been extremely reliable. We have set it up in a high availability scenario, testing it many times. It has been absolutely perfect in terms of failover."
"It is very easy to use. Both the GUI and CLI interface are consistent, which makes the ease of access throughout various constituencies possible. It's also well-documented and logical."

"They don't track concurrent port usage. We have to do that in another way and it's not a very clean way. That is something that I know they could do, but they don't."

What other advice do I have?

It handles everything that I ask it to do. I would totally recommend this as a method to alleviate IP address exhaustion. I would give it a nine (out of 10). The solution's security features are good. We don't use a lot of security for this solution, as it's not required. We don't give students access to the solution. The biggest lesson learnt: Some vendors don't lie.

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reviewer1336776

Head of Global Network Infrastructure at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 27, 2020

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Enabled us to collapse hardware- and software-based solutions into one

What is our primary use case?

It's strictly for outbound NAT-ing to the internet. We are taking internal IPs and masking them from a private IP to a public IP to get to the internet. For this application, everything is hosted on-prem. We are not using a cloud instance of this solution, but we do have cloud-based third-party solutions that are not associated with the A10 product.

Pros and Cons

"The most valuable features are its ease of use and deployment, and being able to collapse several solutions into a single solution, all contained within a single bit of hardware and software."

"There are a couple of features that they could look to implement, versus the workarounds that they have in place. Regarding IPv4 and IPv6, there are a couple of opportunities in there that they are working on, as well."

What other advice do I have?

Do your research and figure out needs versus offerings. Don't pay for what you don't need with any vendor solution. Also, ensure you're picking a box that will allow you to scale out, versus having short-term solutions. Don't be shortsighted. In terms of our biggest security concerns they include malicious code, hacking/cyber defacement, DDoS attacks, insider attacks, and brand damage/loss of confidence. Specific to DDoS, I would want to make certain that, outside-in, we aren't getting attacked, but we have a solution that we utilize to mitigate DDoS attacks, so it's not specific to the A10…

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