<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none;" alt="" src="https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=2975524&amp;fmt=gif">
BLOG

Group Packet Competition at Sharkfest Europe 2017

November 2, 2017

SharkFestEuro17Blog.png

Sharkfest Europe is back for a second year, and Garland Technology is continuing our support of the Wireshark community by sponsoring this year’s Group Packet Competition. While Sharkfest is well established in the US as the premier educational conference for Wireshark users to share knowledge, experiences, and best practices, over in Europe, the conference is still in its early years.


At Sharkfest, the Group Packet Competition is designed to bring teams of Wireshark users together. Each team is given a group of trace files and a sheet of questions. Then, they are challenged to race against the clock to find the answers, often using areas of Wireshark they aren’t familiar with. The Competition is a great way to teach users of all different skill levels new tricks about the analyzer in a fun environment.

Wireshark

Wireshark is the most widely used network protocol analyzer in the world. Since Wireshark is a free and open source software, regardless of organization size, industry, and structure, the IT department is likely to use Wireshark as part of their arsenal of tools for network troubleshooting and analysis.

Why Garland?

Garland’s network TAPs are a natural fit for the Wireshark community. We’ve built our reputation on providing 100% network access and visibility. Our team understands that if packets are dropped and data is missing, then analyzer tools like Wireshark are hindered by their inability to see what is truly going on in the network.

Garland is committed to educating all organization and individuals on the benefits of having a strong foundation of network visibility and access. By providing this education we protect the security of data across your network and beyond.

Going to Sharkfest Europe? We’ll see you at the packet competition. I’m sure it’ll be a great time!

Can’t make it? Follow along on Twitter and Facebook to get the highlights of the event. Hope you can join us next year!

See Everything. Secure Everything.

Contact us now to secure and optimized your network operations
Contact Us

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.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT | THE 101 SERIES