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Flowmon and Garland Technology to Deliver Joint Solution for ISPs and Data Center Operators

June 28, 2016

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Garland Technology, the leading network test access point (TAP) manufacturer has announced a technology partnership with Flowmon Networks.

Flowmon_Networks_Logo_White.jpgThanks to this cooperation, Internet service providers and high-speed network operators can utilize absolute traffic visibility and 100% network uptime when performing operational and security tasks by the Flowmon Solution.

Garland Technology’s passive fiber and copper network TAPs are purpose-built hardware devices that make a 100% copy of a network’s data, allowing the Flowmon monitoring tool to see every bit, byte and packet.®

“We are very keen to announce a technology partnership with Garland Technology. Only with detailed network traffic visibility engineers are able to streamline troubleshooting, network operations and optimize the performance and security of an entire IT environment. And this is where the Flowmon solution and Garland’s Passive Network TAPs come into play,” says Petr Springl, Director of Strategic Alliances at Flowmon Networks.

The joint solution overcomes the limitations of the network traffic monitoring by using SPAN/mirror ports of the routers and switches. Garland’s passive network TAPs ensure capturing of all the traffic without dropping packets which is especially crucial in the ISP and datacenter environment where the uplinks are monitored.

“The Flowmon Networks - Garland Technology partnership is an exciting alliance between our companies and products. Flowmon leads the industry in NetFlow/IPFIX network monitoring. With network high speeds up to 100G its critical packets are not dropped when feeding the Flowmon Probes and Collectors.”  says Chris Bihary, CEO/Co-Founder of Garland Technology.

Garland’s network TAPs are mirroring the traffic into the wire-speed Flowmon Probes which are generating flow data in up to 100G networks for the further processing in Flowmon Collector. Thanks to the joint solution, network and security engineers always receive accurate data for network performance monitoring and diagnostics, troubleshooting, capacity planning, detect anomalies or threats.

View Flowmon Networks and Garland Technology's joint solution brief on ISP/Data Center Monitoring.

About Garland Technology

Garland Technology guarantees precise data monitoring capabilities with a full line of network access points (TAPs) including: network TAPs that support breakout, aggregation, filtering, regeneration and bypass modes; packet brokering and load balancing; all available in portable or 1U or 2U modular chassis systems. Garland network TAPs support all networks, including copper wire in 10/100M, 10/100/1000M and fiber in 1G, 10G, 40G, 100G. Garland’s network TAPs avoid introducing additional software that could be a point of failure to your network.

Garland’s design and educational-based approach includes a team of network designers to work directly with you and your team to meet your network access and visibility needs and provide you with the best solution for any monitoring or security appliance - allowing you to see every bit, byte and packet®.
For more information, visit www.garlandtechnology.com.

About Flowmon Networks

Flowmon Networks empowers businesses to manage and secure their network infrastructure confidently. Through our high performance monitoring technology and lean-forward behavior analytics, IT pros worldwide benefit from absolute network traffic visibility to enhance network & application performance and deal with modern cyber threats. Recognized by Gartner, we are leading the way of NetFlow/IPFIX network monitoring that is high performing, scalable and easy to use. Enterprises, internet service providers, government entities or even small and midsize companies rely on our solutions to take control over their networks, keep order and overcome uncertainty.

See Everything. Secure Everything.

Contact us now to secure and optimized your network operations

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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