User Guide

The External Services Interface 57
CHAPTER 7
The External Services Interface
The Alcatel External Services Interface (ESI) provides an open
interface to integrate security solutions that solve interior
network problems such as viruses, worms, spyware, and
corporate compliance. ESI permits configuration of different
server groups— each with group potentially performing a different
action on the traffic. The Alcatel ESI can be configured to do one
or more of the following for each group:
z Perform health checks on each of the servers in the group
z Redirect specified types of traffic to the server
z Perform per-session load balancing between the servers in
each group
z Provide an interface for the server to return information about
the client that can place the client in special roles such as
“quarantine”
Understanding ESI
In the example shown in this section, the Alcatel ESI is used to
provide an interface to the AntiVirusFirewall (AVF)
1
server device
for providing virus inspection services. AVF is one of many
different types of services supported in the ESI.
1.In AOS -W 2.4, the only AVF server supported is Fortinet.