World’s Leading Packet Flow Switch Adds High-Density 40G for Large-Scale Enterprise and Service Provider Networks

13 Sep 2016

PFS 6010 and HD Taps provide highest scale, performance and density in the market at 40G

WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 13, 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 two additions to its nGenius® Packet Flow Switch (PFS) portfolio, designed for performance and scale at 40G. The nGenius PFS 6010 packet flow switch adds a high-density 40G line card, providing the highest density 40G system in the market, as well as expanding the coverage of protocol stripping and de-encapsulation. The HD (high density) Fiber Tap introduces a flexible optical tapping solution for networks that scale from 1G to 100G.

The PFS 6010 offers the industry’s most scalable packet flow switch solution, with advanced traffic optimization, filtering and flow balancing functionality in a single system that support speeds from 1G to 100G. With the PFS 6010 and HD Fiber Taps, all speeds and feeds needed for network access and monitoring tools or security systems are addressed in a single solution, simplifying deployment, configuration and operations.

According to analyst firm IDC,1 the 40Gbe/100Gbe market is forecasted to grow at 39.2% CAGR from 2014-2019. Datacenter adoption of 10GbE is widespread, and adoption of the newer 40GbE/100GbE speeds is ramping up rapidly. 40GbE is seeing rapid adoption in the datacenter as public and private cloud demands grow. 100GbE is similarly establishing itself on the market and will see a growing uptake from high-end datacenters and hyperscale players.

“Datacenters are evolving to support higher capacity and faster connections and this leads to a myriad of implications for network infrastructure,” said Nolan Greene, senior research analyst, IDC. “Monitoring systems may not have kept pace with these changes, and need the density and scale capabilities of systems such as the NETSCOUT nGenius PFS 6010 in order to ensure network visibility.”

The PFS 6010 packet flow switch already provides the highest density systems for 100G and 10G, and now for 40G as well, delivering maximum scalability for any network environment. The new 40G high-density line card provides 15 ports of 40G, delivering a total of 150 40G ports in a single fully populated PFS 6010 chassis, the highest density 40G system in the market today. In addition to key capabilities such as protocol stripping and de-encapsulation, the PFS 6010 also features new generic stripping capabilities, to provide the broadest coverage for removing unwanted protocol headers from the traffic before forwarding to monitoring devices.

Organizations can reduce operational complexity with the PFS 6010. In contrast to multi-chassis options, only a single system needs to be managed, minimizing use of precious data center rack space and reducing cabling requirements. Deploying this high-density 40G solution also reduces per port cost by over 50% on the PFS 6010 packet flow switch, and scales to meet the needs of the largest enterprise and service provider environments.

With data center and rack real estate at a premium, the HD Tap chassis secures rack space in a 1RU form factor so IT can mix and match variable tap modules at high densities. This flexibility supports evolving optical network conditions, from collections of homogenous links to those with various speeds and feeds. As networks upgrade, tap modules can be easily added or swapped out. The HD Fiber Tap module options support numerous popular interfaces and media types, including 1G for SX, LX, and ZX; 10G for SR, LR, and ER; 40G for SR2 BiDi, SR4, LR4, LM4, ER4, and ZR4; and 100G for SR4, LR4, ER4, and SR10. These links are now made fully available to a PFS, such as the 6010.

Key features of the PFS 6010 and HD Fiber Taps include:

  • Flexibility and density for different network needs. With PFS 6010 and high-density Fiber Taps, numerous popular interfaces and media types are supported, including 40G support for Cisco SR2 BiDi, SR4 for 40G, in addition to LR4, LM4, ER4, and ZR4 40G. For networks requiring 100G support, options include SR4 for 100G, in addition to LR4, ER4, and SR10 100G.
  • Simple, flexible, and scalable deployment options with the HD Fiber Tap. The high-density Fiber Taps have a unique design that slots into a rack mount chassis, consolidating tapping interfaces and minimizing rack space use. With densities of up to 24 fiber network connections in 1RU and modularity on a per 1x1 tap basis, Tap modules can be added or swapped out to support the physical media upgrades without hassle as networks evolve.
  • All traffic is visible. With generic stripping available on the PFS 6010, monitoring tools and security systems see everything. In complex networks with multiple, specialized protocols (e.g. Fabric Path, GRE, GTP, IP-in-IP, L2F, L2TP, L2VPN, MAC-in-MAC, MPLS, NVGRE, PPTP, STT, TRILL, VXLAN), monitoring systems may not be able to see all the traffic. With generic stripping at 4Tbps performance, organizations can now monitor large amounts of traffic that they were unable to monitor before. For instance, if they are utilizing SDN or virtualized networks where encapsulation using protocols like STT or VXLAN are prevalent, these packet flows are now made visible to the monitoring systems to provide complete visibility.
  • Continuous line rate performance. Hardware-accelerated microburst mitigation delivers line-rate performance to ensure no packets are dropped, so monitoring visibility is constant.

Availability
The nGenius PFS 6010 packet flow switch with 40G HD line card and generic stripping and the HD Fiber Taps are available now. Customers covered under NETSCOUT’s award-winning MasterCareSM customer support program enjoy access to supported features and applications released during the term of their coverage without the costs and complexity of additional software feature licenses.

To learn more about the nGenius Packet Flow Switches and HD Taps, visit 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.

©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.

1 IDC Market Forecast: Worldwide Ethernet Switch Forecast, 2015-2019. May 2015. Doc # 256299.

Source: NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC.

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC.
Donna Candelori, +1-408-571-5226
donna.candelori@NETSCOUT.com