The Tolly Group

Size your firewall for the next few years, not the next few months. That is one of the practical points in our Analyst Preview of the Zyxel Networks North America USG FLEX 200H. Kevin Tolly explains how to size ports and throughput for your full refresh cycle, why the WAN link is usually the real bottleneck, and why you should price multi-year licensing with your VAR from the start. After 35+ years and nearly 2,000 independent test reports, Tolly offers unparalleled insight for IT decision makers. 🎥 Watch the 5-minute preview: https://lnkd.in/emXsbpii #ITInfrastructure #NetworkSecurity #Zyxel #TollyGroup #NextGenFirewall #SMBNetworking

🔍 Tolly Evaluation: F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes (BNK) on NVIDIA BlueField DPU When someone sends a prompt to an AI assistant, they expect an answer fast. What they never see is the load balancer deciding which GPU gets the job. If that call is made blindly, users wait longer and expensive GPUs sit idle. F5 asked The Tolly Group to test its intelligent AI load balancing against HAProxy, Envoy, and another open-source solution. Every option was run across three Meta large language models. 📌 Key Findings 1⃣ F5's intelligent AI load balancing outperformed every traditional solution in all tests 2⃣ Smarter routing improved end-user response times and cut down on idle GPU capacity 3⃣ Offloading traffic management to the BlueField DPU used dramatically fewer server CPU resources 📘 What We Evaluated Intelligent vs. round-robin load balancing across three Meta LLMs End-user performance and GPU utilization CPU efficiency with DPU-based offload 💡 Bottom Line: Response time is what users feel. GPU utilization is what the budget feels. This testing shows the load balancer has a real say in both. Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/e2fniShZ #AIInfrastructure #LoadBalancing #F5 #GPU #Kubernetes

IBM, Cisco, and The Tolly Group: A Jointly Qualified FICON Architecture for the IBM z17 Mainframe Mainframe storage decisions carry long timelines and real consequences. Getting the architecture right from the start matters, which is why IBM and Cisco developed a qualified FICON storage solution for the IBM z17 and brought Tolly in to validate it independently. The architecture combines IBM DS8000 storage with Cisco MDS directors and switches, built to support mission-critical data centers without disrupting existing infrastructure investments. 📌 Tolly's Independent Testing Confirmed 1️⃣ Zero traffic disruption during redundant PSU failure. Automatic recovery. No manual intervention required. 2️⃣ 100% completion across roughly 50 qualification tests in six categories under Cisco NX-OS 9.4(3b), certified August 2025 3️⃣ 32G and 64G FICON connectivity both supported. Organizations move to 64G when ready, not because they have to. 📘 Platform Details Qualified across Cisco MDS 9710, 9706, 9220i, and 9148V. Capabilities include VSAN isolation, wire-speed ISL encryption, secure boot, port ACLs, CUP in-band management, Transceiver Power Control, and Power AutoTune. 💡 Bottom Line: The qualification work is done. The testing is independent. If you run mainframe storage environments, this webinar gives you the full picture. Watch the webinar: https://lnkd.in/epUS3cmJ Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/ee5UwXJc #Mainframe #FICON #CiscoMDS #IBMStorage #DataCenter

🔍 Tolly Benchmark: Zyxel USG FLEX 100H vs. SonicWall TZ270 The Tolly Group put the Zyxel Networks North America USG FLEX 100H with the Gold Security UTM Bundle and the SonicWall TZ270 with the Advanced Protection Security Suite through a structured evaluation. Anti-malware detection, URL filtering accuracy, subscription pricing, and included features were all on the table. 📌 Here Is What Independent Testing Found 1️⃣ Zyxel returned higher anti-malware detection efficacy than SonicWall 2️⃣ URL filtering accuracy also favored the USG FLEX 100H 3️⃣ The subscription cost gap is hard to ignore: Zyxel runs 58% lower on one-year renewals and 61% lower on two-year renewals 4️⃣ Cloud management and lifetime firmware upgrades are part of the Gold Security UTM Bundle at no additional cost 📘 How Tolly Evaluated It Tolly engineers built a direct comparison using publicly available licensing data and documented feature sets from both vendors. 💡 Bottom Line: Stronger efficacy. Significantly lower renewal cost. More included. The data makes the case clearly. If your team is anywhere near a firewall decision, give the full report fifteen minutes. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/e4PZ-piQ #Firewall #NetworkSecurity #Zyxel #SonicWall #Cybersecurity

Tactical-edge compute doesn't get a climate-controlled rack. Anduril Industries commissioned The Tolly Group to test the Voyager VM 4.0 Tactical Edge Compute Platform through a 24-hour thermal chamber cycle: heat ramped up, held at sustained elevated temperatures, then brought back down. Sysbench, y-cruncher, and FIO ran every hour to check CPU, memory, and storage. The results: ✅ 0.22% Sysbench CPU variation ✅ ~1% combined CPU and memory variation ✅ ~3% storage read/write variation ✅ No degradation in any phase of the test When the mission moves beyond the data center, consistent performance is the baseline requirement. Read Tolly Report #226112: https://lnkd.in/eQj93_FX #EdgeComputing #TacticalEdge #Defense #Anduril #VoyagerVM #IndependentTesting #Tolly

When network and storage are monitored in separate tools, it takes longer to find the cause of a problem. In The Tolly Group's evaluation of Cisco + NetApp FlexPod, we validated integrated observability across the stack: ✔ Cisco Nexus Dashboard showed LAN and SAN fabrics together in one place ✔ Splunk Observability Cloud showed NetApp storage health, capacity, controller status, and IOPS live The result is one infrastructure with one view, so IT teams can spot issues sooner and spend less time switching between tools. Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/ekxR6s8H #FlexPod #Observability #Splunk #Cisco #NetApp #DataCenter #ITOps

PoE infrastructure keeps growing. Access points, IP cameras, phones, IoT devices — most of it running on 802.3bt at up to 90 watts per port. And most teams don't question compliance until something goes wrong in the field. That's a problem worth solving before deployment, not after. Kevin Tolly’s recent Analyst Preview covers the Sifos Technologies, Inc. MPD-600, a rack-mountable six-port PoE test instrument built specifically for that job. What it covers: 🔹 Six simultaneous test ports across the full power class range — Class 0 through Class 8 at up to 71W 🔹 Voltage testing at 43V, 49V, and 55VDC to simulate real cable run conditions 🔹 Automatic detection of inrush current violations, maintain power signature failures, and class-specific non-compliance 🔹 Three test modes: quick field verification, group interoperability testing, and extended diagnostic fault capture 🔹 Dedicated GbE ports for interacting with devices under active test 🔹 API support via PowerShell, Tcl/Tk, and C/C++/Python for production-line qualification IT teams, systems integrators, and device manufacturers all carry risk when a non-compliant device makes it into production. The MPD-600 is built to catch those failures on the bench, where fixing them is still straightforward. Watch the full analyst preview: https://lnkd.in/dZ7pfkPX #PoE #802dot3bt #NetworkCompliance #IoT #Sifos

GTM effectiveness is only as good as the platform behind it. We ran a real-world test to find out where Apollo.io stands. For our 2026 Go-To-Market Effectiveness and Data Quality Report, The Tolly Group evaluated Apollo.io by running an actual outbound campaign. Not a simulation. A live effort targeting 384 contacts at 205 companies over 30 days, with no email warm-up and no established sender reputation. 📈 2.37% cold-to-meeting conversion rate (industry avg: 0.5–1.5%) 📧 45% email open rate (industry standard: 27–40%) 🔗 One platform handling every GTM function end to end What We Evaluated: Contact data quality, email deliverability, AI-assisted workflows, and a competitive cost and feature comparison against Apollo's top alternatives. Apollo ranked as the most cost-effective vendor with the most complete standard plan. Bottom Line: Real-world testing under tough conditions produced results that cleared every benchmark we measured. Read the full report 👇 https://lnkd.in/dVyAQsDw #TollyGroup #GTM #SalesIntelligence #B2BSales #ColdEmail

🎥 This one keeps coming up in conversations about AI infrastructure. AI infrastructure is only as strong as the network underneath it. Is yours built for what's coming? The Ultra Ethernet Consortium is tackling that question head-on with open standards designed for the low-latency, lossless performance GPU clusters actually need. VIAVI Solutions’ Edward Nakamoto covers: 🔹 What makes AI networking fundamentally different 🔹 How UEC is eliminating vendor lock-in through open collaboration 🔹 The infrastructure requirements driving next-gen AI deployments 💡 Proprietary networking can't scale with AI indefinitely. UEC is building the foundation that can. Watch: https://lnkd.in/eAAB_7-e

We put the F5 BIG-IP Cloud-Native Edition head to head with a traditional VNF architecture, focusing on the workloads service providers care about most. The cloud-native approach came out ahead on latency and DNS throughput while holding steady on L4+CGNAT performance. For teams weighing a move away from VNFs, the webinar walks through what that migration actually looks like. Worth a watch. #ServiceProvider #CloudNative #NetworkModernization #F5 #IndependentTesting