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Multiply the Power of Your Monitoring Tools

Solution Brief

The convergence of voice, data, and video, is driving organizations to depend more and more on multiple
kinds of information flowing efficiently over high-speed networks. As data types proliferate, so do the types
of monitoring tools needed to analyze the traffic and
keep the network moving quickly and securely. The
cost and complexity of your monitoring solution can Director™
explode as more kinds of tools need to be deployed • Switches, aggregates, and regenerates
across an ever-increasing number of critical links. Is traffic from 4 10-Gigabit XFP ports and 34
there any help available for taming the developing 1-Gigabit ports per chassis
monitoring beast? • Supports media type conversion with 10
SFP monitor ports
Take control over your mission-critical, high-speed • Expands by daisy-chaining up to 10
converged networks with Director, a new monitoring chassis
and data aggregation solution from Net Optics, • Includes low-latency, hardware-based
the leader in monitoring access. Director connects TapFlow™ filtering engine to send tools
dozens or hundreds of critical high-volume data only traffic of interest
links to a sub-station of monitoring tools, enabling • Provides RMON statistics such as
you to send just the traffic of interest from any links packet counts, bandwidth utilization, and
to any tools you choose, with remote, dynamic threshold alarms to increase efficiency
control. Sophisticated filtering, aggregation, and
regeneration capabilities enable not only one-to-
one, many-to-one, and one-to-many mappings
of links to tools, but even partial-to-one and partial-to-many by selecting partial traffic streams based
on protocol, IP addresses, ports, and even packet payload content. Director is a tool that multiplies the
efficiency of your monitoring resources—and monitoring tool investments—by providing the ability to
share specialized tools across many links and to stretch the processing power of the tools by having them
work only on traffic of interest for their particular purposes.

Increase IT Network
Management
Visibility
The need for Director
rises from the growing
speed, complexity, and
intelligence of the modern network. Networks are the hidden wonders of the engineering world. Besides
architects and administrators, few people realize how high a level of intelligence is automatically applied
as networks find routes for packets, discover new network links and topologies, self-heal around downed
or broken links, process dozens of different protocols, and do their best to keep the traffic secure and
lawful. But administrators know they need to keep a close eye on how it all operates because problems
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Multiply the Power of Your Monitoring Tools

Solution Brief

do get beyond the network’s intelligence from time to time—especially with hackers and criminals doing
their worst 24 x 7—and incidents can quickly grow to major problems if not discovered and remediated
quickly.

One Method of providing monitoring access is often through Span ports built into network switches.
An administrator simply reconfigures the switch to send copies of traffic of interest to a spare switch
port for monitoring purposes. This technique potentially makes a single tool available to any of the links
accessible by the switch. While Span ports still have a place in today’s monitoring access platform, their
effectivity has shrunk considerably due to several factors:

• The need for administrator time, a maintenance window, and permission to reconfigure the
network makes Span use burdensome and untimely
• The use of a port for Span means loss of revenue that could be generated on that port
• Span ports are not guaranteed to reflect 100 percent of the traffic of interest; they drop Span
traffic when other demands on the switch grow too high, which is often true on today’s highly
utilized switches; and Span ports simply can’t keep up with high-speed 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit
traffic

For these reasons, Span port access

has been largely replaced by use
of test access ports or Taps that
are installed in-line with the link that
needs to be monitored. As dedicated
devices, Taps are guaranteed to send
the monitoring device 100 percent of
all the traffic on the link—even Layer
1 and Layer 2 errors that Span ports
would scrub out, and which are often IDS Analyzer 1
important trouble-shooting clues.
Moreover, Taps are totally secure
Analyzer 2 Forensic
and passive devices: they have no IP
addresses and so are invisible to the
link, and they do not affect the traffic RMON 1 RMON 2

flowing through the link, even if power FTP DHCP UDP HTTP
is removed from the Tap. In fact, Taps
for optical links do not consume any
power at all, a significant benefit for the
TapFlow™ filtering engine enables Director to filter
green data center. traffic from all layers by specific protocol types

Get The Access-Ready Solution

As it has grown to be the dominant access method for monitoring high-performance networks, Tap
technology has evolved to incorporate a variety of valuable and innovative features. Each Director
chassis brings together the best of all of these features in a single access-ready solution:

• Four 10-Gigabit XFP ports and 34 1-Gigabit ports with aggregating capability
• In-line and Span network modules
• SFP monitor port interface, supports regeneration and media conversion
• Low-latency, hardware-based Tapflow™ filtering
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Multiply the Power of Your Monitoring Tools

Solution Brief

While Director packs a host of features and capabilities, it is a stand-alone appliance that is as easy to
set up as any Tap. Just plug in the network links, the monitoring devices, and power, and use the simple
point-and-click Net Optics Indigo™ management software to direct which traffic is copied to which tool.
More sophisticated functionality is easily brought online using friendly graphical user interface (GUI)
or efficient command line interface (CLI) tools. Online documentation with extensive examples is also
provided. Customers report setting up and completing Director functional tests the same day they
received the unit.

TapFlow Filtering can send traffic by protocol TapFlow Filtering can aggregate traffic
type to particular monitoring tools: as well as filter:

VoIP Tool Analyzer

Analyzer IDS
Span Port 1 Span Port 2

VoIP TCP All Traffic

Span Port 1 Traffic Span Port 2 Traffic

Total Control With Indigo™ Management Software

Net Optics Indigo management software launches you up
the learning curve so you start receiving the full benefits of
your Director investment in no time flat. Indigo presents three
distinct interfaces to match your needs and comfort level:

• System Manager—A rich graphical user interface makes

it easy to track Director deployments with multiple chassis,
hundreds of monitoring tools, and thousands of network
links.
- User-assigned labels make equipment easy to
identify
- Links and monitoring ports can be switched using
point-and-click commands or by alpha-numeric entry
- Industry-standard SNORT syntax is accepted to
define filters
System Manager runs remotely and securely over a dedicated management port, and includes
complete reporting and graphical monitoring facilities.
• Web Manager—Embedded within Director itself, this HTML-based interface is accessible from any
Web browser anywhere in the world. It is a handy tool for administrators and engineers to check in
on the network from home or on the road. In addition, its simplified interface can help new users
become comfortable with Director’s capabilities more quickly.
• CLI—The Director command line interface is instantly recognizable by any network administrator
familiar with Cisco or other switch and router management software. It is the ideal console for quickly
configuring and checking the status of Director units, working either through a local RS 232 port or a
remote SSH connection.
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Multiply the Power of Your Monitoring Tools

Solution Brief

Summary
Accelerate data monitoring by letting Director send traffic of interest from all your critical links to a shared
pool of devices. Leverage tools across multiple resources and groups with different monitoring needs.
Discover the value of TapFlow™ filtering to streamline network tuning and trouble-shooting, and stretch
the value of your existing tools. Watch your monitoring access challenges shrink as your monitoring tool
ROI grows. Director, the tool for monitoring high-speed converged networks, is available now.

For further information on Tap technology:

http://www.netoptics.com
Net Optics, Inc.
5303 Betsy Ross Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 737-7777
info@netoptics.com

Distributed by:

BRAIN FORCE Software GmbH

Ohmstr. 12
D - 63225 Langen (near Frankfurt/M.)

Tel: +49 (0)6103 906-767

Email: netoptics@brainforce.com
www.network-taps.eu

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