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Visibility Solutions

Garland Technology is committed to educating the benefits of having a strong foundation of network visibility and access. By providing this insight we protect the security of data across your network and beyond.

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Garland Technology's resource library offers free use of white papers, eBooks, use cases, infographics, data sheets, video demos and more.

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The TAP into Technology blog provides the latest news and insights on network access and visibility, including: network security, network monitoring and appliance connectivity and guest blogs from Industry experts and technology partners

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Our extensive technology partnership ecosystem solves critical problems when it comes to network security, monitoring, application analysis, forensics and packet inspection.

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Garland Technology is dedicated to high standards in quality and reliability, while delivering the greatest economical solutions for enterprise, service providers, and government agencies worldwide.

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Whether you are ready to make a network TAP your foundation of visibility or just have questions, please contact us. Ask us about the Garland Difference!

How to Connect your Inline Application Monitoring Tools in 5 Steps

It goes without saying, but proper application monitoring is a critical component of sound network management. Let the following example show you:

Say you have two critical 10G links that you need to monitor with a few inline network tools. That sounds like a big problem because each inline appliance has the potential of introducing a point of failure. Then, there is also the problem of getting all the network traffic from each critical link to go to each individual inline appliance for processing.

Sounds like a scenario that could be difficult and expensive to implement. But it doesn’t have to be.

By using Advanced Aggregation, you can increase the efficiency and port utilization of your network!

Connect your links to your bypass TAPs

Bypass TAPs provide several benefits to your network when connected to inline appliances, but the most importantly, they eliminate the possibility that the inline appliance could create a point of failure for your network.

10G Bypass Taps

 

Connect your Bypass TAPs to the Aggregator

The Bypass TAPs cannot be connected directly to the inline appliance for two reasons. First because the network links are 10G and the appliances are 1G. And second, since you are trying to monitor two separate links, you would need two sets of monitoring tools to analyze the traffic.

Connect Bypass to AA


By using the PacketMAX Advanced Aggregator, we can avoid these issues, since the Advanced Aggregator is purpose built to provide flexibility for your network. Each port on the Advanced Aggregators can be configured to receive inbound network traffic or to transmit outbound monitoring traffic. The Advanced Aggregator can also be set to load balance the traffic across the 5 appliances, so that the ports on the individual appliances are not oversubscribed. Finally, the Advanced Aggregators can tag the packets, so that when the packet is returned, it will know what link to return it to. This capability eliminates the second problem, removing the need for two sets of application monitoring appliances.

>> Download Now: Aggregation - Adding Value Back Into Your Network and Maximise ROI [Free whitepaper]

Connect your appliances to the Aggregator

Connect your appliances to the Advanced Aggregator using the appropriate cables and pluggables.

Connect Appliances to AA

 

Configure the AA to load balance to your appliances

Program the Advanced Aggregator. It needs to be set up to load balance the traffic out to the monitoring appliances. Tag the packets so they can be returned to the proper link, and distribute the traffic out to the five 1G appliances. When the traffic is returned to the Advanced Aggregator after being processed by the application monitoring tools, it needs to remove the tags and return the packets to their proper 10G links.

Configure AA

Analyze your data

Now that you’ve connected the inline appliances without introducing any points of failure, you are ready to analyze your traffic. You can even take your appliances offline, should you need to perform updates to the software or firmware, without scheduling a maintenance window of network downtime.

Looking to add an aggregation solution to your next deployment, but not sure where to start? Join us for a brief network Design-IT consultation or demo. No obligation - it’s what we love to do!

Network Aggregation maximizes network visibility and optimize network packet broker ports

Written by Chris Bihary

Chris Bihary, CEO and Co-founder of Garland Technology, has been in the network performance industry for over 20 years. Bihary has established collaborative partnerships with technology companies to complement product performance and security through the integration of network TAP visibility.

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