KB44446 - Impact of deploying PSA-7000 appliances in any flavor (such as HW, Virtual or Cloud) in One Arm Mode.

This article describes the impact of deploying PSA-7000 (All flavours such as HW, Virtual or Cloud) in One Arm Mode.
 

Pulse Appliances can be deployed in several ways as described in Determine Topology and Connect the PCS device(s) to the network

If PSA-7000 appliance in any flavour is deployed in One arm mode (Only Internal Port is Enabled, Configured & used), then only 4 CPU Cores gets utilized for the processing of the Network Traffic (Inbound/Outbound). However, all the 8 CPU Cores get used for other internal functionalities.

This will leave 4 CPU cores unutilized for handling I/O Network traffic. And, may not give you an optimal performance compared to a 2-arm Mode.

This issue applies to :

•    Both PCS/PPS devices.
•    All flavours of PSA-7000 deployments (such as HW, Virtual or Cloud) and on all supported software versions.

This issue doesn’t apply to :

•    Any flavour of PSA-300, PSA-3000 & PSA-5000.
•    Any flavour of PSA-7000 when 2-arm Mode is deployed (Both Internal & External ports are Enabled, configured and used). 

Note : This can be checked under System -> Network -> External Port.


 

This is a software defect & it is caused due to a hard coded limit of 4 CPU Cores per PSA-7000 Interface (Internal & External).

This issue is now fixed for PSA-7000 H/W & VMWare PSA-V in PCS 9.1R6 and is available for download via https://my.pulsesecure.net/

We will keep this KB updated as and when we make progress on the remaining items.

Workaround : 

•    PCS Customers: Based on the feasibility and Pulse Connect Secure: Security configuration best practices, please deploy the PCS appliance in two-arm mode. 
•    PPS Customers: Not Available.