In our new infographic, The Evolution of Network Visibility, we took a trip down melody lane to show readers the events and innovations that sparked the rise of network visibility.
Relax and rewind to some rock from the 2000’s, when networking gained in complexity and keeping secure become tougher than ever before.
As soon as we and rang in the new century, network complexity exploded like a Bugs Bunny cigar. Networks were no longer dedicated to hardwiring desktop PCs, and tying offices together and reaching out to the Internet.
Networks encompassed wireless, remote users and partners, and ran rich new apps—video and web conferencing, Cloud applications, and social media. The networks to support it all got faster, and complexity multiplied. Two problems—it was harder to manage and understand this complexity, and there was a much larger and more intricate field of attack vectors.
It may sound Korn-y, but network managers couldn’t just TAP dance around these issues. They took charge of their networks with more monitoring, management and security appliances. However, the appliances themselves became a problem. They were just one more layer to connect, monitor and protect.
In the early 2000’s a few things were hot—including Green Day and Korn. But with all this mess, network managers had their own favorite tune—network TAPs!
Like Billy Joe Armstrong, in the 2000’s hackers got better with age and their attacks became more advanced, widespread and persistent.
The B side of that was network pros demanded deeper visibility into connections and traffic. Network monitoring was part of that, but so was the complete picture only a TAP can create. But a TAP is no one hit wonder. Smart IT has TAPs tied in to aggregate traffic data from an array of network devices, offering broad and deep visibility across all the tracks.
IT had some other requests for network players—give us deep visibility into Web firewalls, and help make sure there is no network downtime.
In the first decade of the new century, network TAPs came to the rescue like a Wall Street bailout and helped hunt down hackers when they come around.
In our Evolution of Network Visibility infographic, we cover the chain of events that have led us to the current state of network visibility. Just as the favorite rock bands of the decades have emerged and evolved, so too have network TAPs and security appliances.
Rock on and discover how each decade came to grips with the growing need for network visibility.
Tweet and tell us where your visibility story began #NetworkFlashback.