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Design-IT Solutions: Remote Management for Inline Devices

May 22, 2018

Technician personal computer while analyzing server in server room

Networks are becoming more and more distributed. We’re starting to see more customers deploying security tools at their remote locations, such as bank branches and retail outlets, or as managed services to clients.

Scenario: A customer came to Garland because they needed to manage security tools at multiple remote sites where there is no dedicated on-site IT team.

Remote Access

Solution: Deploy a bypass TAP with remote management capabilities at each remote location with active, inline security tools.

The Bypass TAP was developed to resolve the problem of an inline security appliance causing a point of failure.  If the connected inline security appliance, in this case a NGFW goes off-line for any reason, the TAP will bypass the appliance and keep the link flowing. The Bypass TAP accomplishes this by sending out heartbeat packets to the security tool, and then listens for them to be returned to the TAP, keeping link traffic flowing through the inline appliance.

Having a Bypass TAP installed with each inline security tool ensures that any updates or changes that need to be made to the security tool can be quickly performed, without having to take the network down.  We recently had a customer who had a client with multiple remote locations that each needed an inline appliance.

Remote Access 2


Since they had installed the NGFW with a Bypass TAP, the client was able to significantly shorten maintenance windows and expedite the troubleshooting process. The Bypass TAP allowed them to move the inline device, out-of-band at will; enabling the customer to push through a patch and validate the update was successful with actual traffic.  When everything was determined to be correct, the Bypass TAP was used to bring the device back inline. This was all done from the central IT office, hundreds of miles away from the remote location

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When the remote location experienced a network issue, using the Bypass TAP to move the NGFW from inline to out-of-band effectively removes the appliance from the network. With the device in an out-of-band state, the customer was able to isolate if the NGFW was the cause of the network issues in a matter of seconds.

The client couldn’t believe how simple it was to remotely maintain the security tools at their sites, without having to schedule downtime, or send out a tech to perform the updates.

[Want to design your own solution? Talk to one of our experts today for a free Design-IT meeting to develop a solution that will solve your network problems.]

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Heartbeats Packets Inside the Bypass TAP

If the inline security tool goes off-line, the TAP will bypass the tool and automatically keep the link flowing. The Bypass TAP does this by sending heartbeat packets to the inline security tool. As long as the inline security tool is on-line, the heartbeat packets will be returned to the TAP, and the link traffic will continue to flow through the inline security tool.

If the heartbeat packets are not returned to the TAP (indicating that the inline security tool has gone off-line), the TAP will automatically 'bypass' the inline security tool and keep the link traffic flowing. The TAP also removes the heartbeat packets before sending the network traffic back onto the critical link.

While the TAP is in bypass mode, it continues to send heartbeat packets out to the inline security tool so that once the tool is back on-line, it will begin returning the heartbeat packets back to the TAP indicating that the tool is ready to go back to work. The TAP will then direct the network traffic back through the inline security tool along with the heartbeat packets placing the tool back inline.

Some of you may have noticed a flaw in the logic behind this solution!  You say, “What if the TAP should fail because it is also in-line? Then the link will also fail!” The TAP would now be considered a point of failure. That is a good catch – but in our blog on Bypass vs. Failsafe, I explained that if a TAP were to fail or lose power, it must provide failsafe protection to the link it is attached to. So our network TAP will go into Failsafe mode keeping the link flowing.

Glossary

  1. Single point of failure: a risk to an IT network if one part of the system brings down a larger part of the entire system.

  2. Heartbeat packet: a soft detection technology that monitors the health of inline appliances. Read the heartbeat packet blog here.

  3. Critical link: the connection between two or more network devices or appliances that if the connection fails then the network is disrupted.

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