Why Choose Owl Talon Over Waterfall WF 500/600 Unidirectional Security Gateways
FOR UTILITIES, NUCLEAR, AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATORS WHO CAN’T AFFORD DOWNTIME, BLIND SPOTS, OR DOUBT.
Owl Talon provides a flexible, secure, unified data diode platform that scales from substations and control rooms to enterprise SOCs—without sacrificing verifiable trust or operational uptime. With FPGA-based protocol filtering, up to 100 Gbps throughput, and built-in high availability, Talon lets operators move the data they need for safety, reliability, and compliance while keeping control networks strictly isolated.
MISSION-READY FOR UTILITIES, NUCLEAR, AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Why choose Owl Talon over Waterfall?
Across the metrics that matter most to grid operators, nuclear facilities, and industrial environments—security assurance, performance at scale, protocol flexibility, and lifecycle economics—Owl Talon stands out as the diode platform built for high-consequence OT/IT boundaries. Talon minimizes software at the trust boundary, delivers deterministic one-way transfer with FPGA-based protocol filtering, and supports multiple simultaneous OT and IT protocols on a single platform.
Waterfall WF‑500/600 gateways provide strong optical isolation and are widely used for OT historian and SCADA replication via software connectors and mirrored servers, but rely on software engines for protocol handling and scale-out.
With Owl Talon, you can:
- Reduce cyber and safety risk with hardware-enforced, FPGA-based, protocol-aware one-way transfer at the trust boundary.
- Maintain real-time visibility and analytics with throughput options up to 100 Gbps across Talon models.
- Adapt quickly as protocols, historians, and compliance requirements change—without forklift hardware upgrades.
- Eliminate complex multi-appliance HA and mirrored-server topologies using built-in dual-card failover.
- Extend asset lifecycles and reduce upgrade risk with 5–7 year product lifetimes and in-place protocol updates.
At-a-glance comparison: Owl Talon vs Waterfall WF 500/600
| Category | Owl Talon | Waterfall WF 500/600 USG |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware-level Filtering & Inspection (PFD) | ||
| Throughput / Performance | Up to 100 Gbps | Up to 10 Gbps |
| Built-In High Availability | ||
| Security Features | Extensive (Secure boot, TPM, disk encryption, SELinux, integrity monitoring.) | Optical isolation, hardened chassis. |
| Protocol Support Breadth | File transfer, streaming, industrial/OT, monitoring, time, email/web. | File transfer, industrial/OT, logging/monitoring, email, cloud/IT. |
| Deployment / Form Factors | Owl Talon | Waterfall WF 500/600 |
|---|---|---|
| Rackmount | ||
| DIN-Rail |
Discover Why Owl Talon Outpaces the Competition
When it comes to OT/IT data transfer and protection in power, nuclear, water, and other critical sectors, not all diodes and unidirectional gateways are created equal. Owl’s latest guide explains how Talon’s FPGA-based protocol filtering, built-in high availability, and multi-protocol flexibility compare to Waterfall’s replication-centric WF‑500/600 gateways—particularly for environments where downtime, blind spots, or complex HA topologies are not acceptable.
You’ll see how Owl Talon helps you simplify architectures, strengthen Zero Trust at OT/IT boundaries, and stretch security budgets further—while still supporting engineers, CISOs, and regulators who demand clear evidence of isolation and data integrity.
Download the guide to learn:
- The top five reasons operators choose Owl Talon over Waterfall WF‑500/600 for modern OT/IT data flows.
- How hardware-enforced protocol filtering at the diode boundary improves Zero Trust and reduces attack surface.
- Ways to reduce lifecycle cost, upgrade risk, and hardware sprawl across substations, plants, and control centers by consolidating protocols on a single, high-performance platform.
Realize Secure, Flexible One-Way Transfers with Owl Talon
Owl Talon One™
Available in 1U rackmount and DIN-Rail form factors, the Owl Talon One provides safe, secure one-way transfers at up to 1Gbps. Transfer multiple, simultaneous data types & protocols on a single device and via a single PCIe card that meets Protocol Filtering Diode (PFD) standards. Also available in bidirectional configuration for secure, round-trip data transfer.
Owl Talon Torrent™
Available in 1U or 2x 1U rackmount form factor, the Owl Talon Torrent provides safe, secure, ultra high-speed one-way transfers at up to 100Gbps. Transfer multiple, simultaneous data types & protocols via our diode card pair that meets Protocol Filtering Diode (PFD) standards.