Form Factors
DataPower Gateway ships in several form factors. They all run the same core firmware and configuration model, so skills transfer directly between them. What differs is where and how the gateway runs.
The four editions
Physical appliance
A sealed, hardened hardware appliance (e.g. the IDG / X2 line). No general-purpose OS shell, tamper-resistant, and historically includes hardware acceleration for cryptographic and XML processing. Chosen when you need maximum throughput, the strongest security posture, or hardware-anchored key storage (an HSM).
Virtual edition
The same firmware packaged as a virtual appliance for VMware, KVM, Hyper-V, or a cloud VM. Easier to provision and scale than buying hardware, while keeping the appliance security model. No hardware crypto acceleration — crypto runs in software.
Container edition
DataPower as a container image for Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift. This is the modern default for cloud-native deployments: gateways scale horizontally as pods, configuration is delivered declaratively, and they fit CI/CD pipelines.
Developer edition (DataPower Gateway for Developers)
A free, non-production container image for learning and development. It's fully functional for building and testing configurations — just not licensed for production traffic. This is what we'll use for the labs.
How to choose
| Need | Likely choice |
|---|---|
| Maximum throughput, HSM, strongest hardening | Physical appliance |
| Existing virtualization estate, no new hardware | Virtual edition |
| Cloud-native, Kubernetes/OpenShift, autoscaling | Container edition |
| Learning, dev, CI test | Developer edition |
Because every edition shares the firmware and configuration model, a service you build on the developer container behaves the same way on a physical appliance. You design once and deploy anywhere.
Knowledge Check
Which form factor would you use to learn and build configurations locally for free?
What is the main thing the physical appliance offers that the virtual/container editions do not?