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[Webinar] Find Your Network Blind Spots Sponsored by Palo Alto's Fuel User Group

March 17, 2016

At last year’s Ignite Conference and the 6 Spark User Summits we attended, we were surprised to find just how many network professionals are still relying on SPAN ports.

Even though SPAN ports seemed to serve network architects well in the past, there’s always been a fundamental problem with them for enterprise networks—their inability to provide 100% visibility.

The increasing complexity of modern enterprise networks is making network blind spots easier to recognize. With next generation firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPSs), network forensics and other security appliances connected to the network in conjunction with a litany of monitoring tools (deep packet inspectors, application performance monitoring, sniffers and more), it’s tougher than ever to design a network for total threat prevention.

Overcoming the limitations of SPAN port connectivity with so many in-line and out-of-band security and monitoring tools requires network TAP solutions that eliminate your network blind spots—and the upcoming Fuel User Group webinar, Find Your Blind Spots. Plan for Visibility, will help you understand how to make this a reality.

 Garland Technology, Fuel User Group Founding Partner to Present the Find Your Blind Spots. Plan For Visibility Webinar

The current network reality is that without 100% visibility to network traffic, your investment in Fuel__Founding_Partner_Logo.pngexpensive security appliances and monitoring tools are wasted. When these in-line and out-of-band solutions aren’t guaranteed to see all traffic - every bit, byte, and packet®, suspicious communications are left to slip into the network and spark potentially devastating data breaches or performance issues. 

However, no matter how many times we explain the importance of network visibility, SPAN port remains a common connectivity option and blind spots persist. We know that for many network architects and our fellow Fuel User Group members, proof is in more practical examples and explanations.  

On March 22, 2016 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT, Garland Technology Co-Founders Chris Bihary (CEO) and Jerry Dillard (CTO) will present the Find Your Blind Spots. Plan for Visibility webinar is for the Fuel User Group members, Garland customers, Palo Alto Networks NGFW customers and resellers, and anyone interested in learning more about network visibility.

This webinar will have a chief focus on real-world visibility scenarios and network TAP demos. You’ll learn about: 

  • Finding a baseline for network traffic with Palo Alto Networks NGFWs
  • Gaining visibility in network environments that require up to 2 in-band appliances and 3 out-of-band monitoring tools
  • Managing the network edge by improving visibility for environments with 4 in-line appliances and 8 out-of-band monitoring tools.

In addition to these real-world use cases, Chris Bihary and Jerry Dillard will walk the audience through a live-demo of the packet capture and analysis process when network TAPs are implemented in the network while utilizing NextComputing's Packet Continuum Cluster. With before and after snapshots of the network visibility in the packet capture and analysis process, you can see the concrete difference between SPAN port blind spots and network TAP guaranteed visibility.

There’s still plenty of time to pre-register for the upcoming Find Your Blind Spots. Plan for Visibility webinar presented by the Fuel User Group and Garland Technology. Click here to register for the webinar and tune in on March 22 at 2:00pm ET to find out how to eliminate the blind spots in your network.

Webinar Find your Blindspots

 

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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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