Why Packets Per Second (PPS) Matter in DDoS Defense

Packets per second (PPS) is one of the most important measurements to consider when planning a DDoS defense strategy and evaluating solutions.In this video, A10 Networks' Don Shin explains what PPS is and how it relates to DDoS defense.On a Gigabit link, for example, you can have anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of packets. In DDoS, an attacker's strategy is asynchronous, meaning the attacker attempts to do as little work as possible while making their target do a lot of work. Therefore, attackers tend to use smaller packets and force the target to respond with larger packets in response, which drains the target's resources.When considering a DDoS defense and mitigation solution, it's important to understand its packet processing capabilities. A10 Thunder TPS is built on ACOS, A10's massively parallel data path architecture, which makes us the industry leader in packets per second processing. Select Thunder TPS models can support up to 300 Gbps of throughput and 440 million packets per second (MPPS), which is orders of magnitude higher than other DDoS defense solutions.