nGenius Packet Flow Switches Deliver New Capabilities for Service
Assurance and Cybersecurity
WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2016--
NETSCOUT
SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ:NTCT), a leading provider of business
assurance – a powerful combination of service assurance, cybersecurity,
and business intelligence solutions – today announced capabilities in
its nGenius® Packet
Flow Switches (PFS) that deliver deeper packet visibility. nGenius
PFS enable customers to continuously monitor and secure real-time
traffic across all business services, regardless of underlying
protocols, in both physical and virtual environments. By seamlessly
integrating the nGenius PFS with the nGeniusONE® Service
Assurance platform, customers benefit from a solution that reveals
additional packet details, thus extracting more intelligence from the
traffic flow. With expanded security capabilities such as hybrid port
mode, organizations gain additional flexibility that ease transitions
from passive to active security deployments. nGenius PFS enable unified
visibility for both service assurance and cybersecurity, as part of a
business assurance solution that reduces performance and security risks.
“The ongoing innovations that NETSCOUT is building in their nGenius
Packet Flow Switches address the needs for deeper packet visibility and
security with our customers,” said John Carson, managing director,
Phoenix Datacom, a leading UK-based reseller and integrator of
network-based testing, analysis and security solutions to major
telecommunications service providers, government agencies and
enterprises. “With NETSCOUT, we can help customers see more in their
networks, and secure their infrastructure to deliver a complete business
assurance solution.”
“Unified packet visibility solves the problem of disparate monitoring
infrastructures for service assurance and network security that lead to
operational inefficiency and risk,” said Zeus Kerravala, founder and
principal analyst, ZK Research. “The steps that NETSCOUT has taken with
the integration of its cybersecurity, service assurance and packet
visibility capabilities are critical in helping organizations gain
deeper packet visibility and obtain a holistic view of their
infrastructure and services.”
According to the Network
Monitoring Report (2016) from IHS Technology, NETSCOUT
leads the service provider segment for network monitoring switches,
complementing its strong position in the enterprise market. NETSCOUT
packet flow switches fortify and advance such leadership with additional
new capabilities that create deep visibility into packet flows, so
monitoring tools can see more from the network. These new capabilities
leverage internal development initiatives along with integration of key
features and functionality acquired as part of the Company’s last year’s
acquisition of the Danaher Communications Business. nGenius Packet Flow
Switches provide service assurance through capabilities such as:
-
Flexibility in forwarded traffic: In virtualized environments,
users can choose to either de-encapsulate packets, forward it on
encapsulated, or do both. This flexibility allows monitoring tools to
see more, as needed. Additionally, tight integration with NETSCOUT InfiniStream®
probes allow the probes to use the information in the encapsulation
headers to provide deeper visibility into the packet data, such as
port and time stamp information.
-
Traffic origination visibility: Through integration with the
nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform, PFS mode on the packet flow
switch allows monitoring tools to see from which links on the network
a particular packet flow originates through customizable VLAN tagging.
The packet flow switch can set custom VLAN Tag ID values, as traffic
is forwarded to monitoring tools. This enables the tools to inspect
traffic based on origin, which is critical in multi-tenant
environments.
-
Visibility into tunneled packet flows: With generic stripping
(de-encapsulation), nGenius Packet Flow Switches support
network environments that utilize a variety of tunneling protocols
(e.g. GRE, ERSPAN, GTP, MPLS) by giving monitoring tools the
visibility into these packet flows. Packets can be de-encapsulated
from tunnels and inspected, so monitoring tools can see things that
were previously hidden within these protocols.
Business assurance solutions must also reduce risk and streamline
operations. nGenius Packet Flow Switches help organizations deploy
inline security without worry, through security-optimized capabilities
such as:
-
Advanced inline aggregation: When aggregating traffic from
multiple networks, VLAN tags are often utilized to identify the
appropriate network source for returning inspected traffic. However,
this creates issues for security systems that cannot process these
tags. Additionally, in large-scale dynamic network environments with
asymmetric routing, delivering packets back to the origination source
is not possible. With nGenius Packet Flow Switches, discovery of the
origination network by MAC address or Link Aggregation Group (LAG)
alleviates the additional tagging requirement of other systems. So
security systems can see all packet flows for inspection and analysis,
and packets are returned to the source of origination on the network
correctly.
-
High frequency advanced health checks: nGenius Packet Flow
Switches go beyond a simple interface (port up/down) or “heartbeat”
ping to see if security systems are on. With
L7 application-level functionality health checks, nGenius Packet Flow
Switches ensure the security application or device is functioning as
expected. Positive and negative health checks can be performed as
frequently as every 100ms, ensuring that security systems function
correctly; thus reducing time to detect security system failure. Used in
combination in triggers, health checks enable automatic
high-availability and fail over, to simplify operations and reduce
security risk.
-
Hybrid port support: Both passive (copies of traffic) and
active (production) traffic can be sent to the same monitoring tool
port, allowing security systems with a hybrid capability to receive
the traffic on the same port. Systems that provide both active and
passive capabilities, such as intrusion prevention (IPS) and intrusion
detection (IDS), are gaining ground. The hybrid mode on nGenius Packet
Flow Switches leads to better port utilization and efficient use of
security systems, as now customers do not have to choose which mode to
run the system in or run two systems (one active and one passive) in
parallel.
-
Scalable security systems: With the large amount of traffic
that needs to be inspected from high-speed links (e.g. 40G) or
aggregated from multiple links, the processing capability of each
security system needs to be considered to prevent overload and
potential failure on any one system. nGenius Packet Flow Switches
support high capacity (up to 32 instances) session-aware load
balancing, providing security visibility and reducing risk by
preventing over-subscription and potential failure on any one system.
The new nGenius Packet Flow Switches capabilities provide deeper packet
visibility while optimizing packets from the network to the monitoring
tools and security systems. Additional integration with the nGeniusONE
Service Assurance platform means organizations can deploy a business
assurance solution that mitigates performance and security risks. Learn
more about how nGenius Packet Flow Switches enable unified visibility
for service assurance and security here.
About NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC.
NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT) is a leading provider of business
assurance – a powerful combination of service assurance, cybersecurity,
and business intelligence solutions – for today’s most demanding service
provider, enterprise and government networks. NETSCOUT’s Adaptive
Service Intelligence (ASI) technology continuously monitors the service
delivery environment to identify performance issues and provides insight
into network-based security threats, helping teams to quickly resolve
issues that can cause business disruptions or impact user experience.
NETSCOUT delivers unmatched service visibility and protects the digital
infrastructure that supports our connected world. To learn more, visit www.netscout.com
or follow @NETSCOUT on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Safe Harbor
Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe
harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
and other federal securities laws. Investors are cautioned that
statements in this press release, which are not strictly historical
statements, including without limitation, the statements related to the
benefits of nGenius Packet Flow Switches, constitute forward-looking
statements which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could
differ materially from the forward-looking statements due to known and
unknown risk, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors. Such factors
include slowdowns or downturns in economic conditions generally and in
the market for advanced network and service assurance solutions
specifically; the volatile foreign exchange environment; the company’s
relationships with strategic partners and resellers; dependence upon
broad-based acceptance of the company’s network performance management
solutions; the presence of competitors with greater financial resources
than ours and their strategic response to our products; our ability to
retain key executives and employees; lower than expected demand for the
company’s products and services; and the ability of NETSCOUT to
successfully integrate the merged assets and the associated technology
and achieve operational efficiencies. For a more detailed description of
the risk factors associated with the company, please refer to the
company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31,
2016 and the company’s subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, which
are on file with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. NETSCOUT assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking
information contained in this press release or with respect to the
announcements described herein.
©2016 NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. All rights reserved. NETSCOUT, the
NETSCOUT logo, Guardians of the Connected World, Adaptive Service
Intelligence, InfiniStream, InfiniStreamNG, nGenius and nGeniusONE are
registered trademarks or trademarks of NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC., and/or
its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.
Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective
owners.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161115005703/en/
Source: NETSCOUT NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC.
NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC.
Donna Candelori, +1-408-571-5226
donna.candelori@NETSCOUT.com