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Garland Technology Joins Palo Alto Networks Technology Partner Program

March 21, 2013

Garland Technology joins Palo Alto Networks’ Technology Partner Program to enable continuous network monitoring and availability using Bypass TAPS

Buffalo, NY March 21, 2013 -- Garland Technology, the innovator of modular Bypass TAP Technology Solutions, announced today that its Bypass family of TAPs is compatible with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls.

Garland is a market leader in network TAPs, aggregation/regeneration TAPs and filtering aggregation load balancing solutions for enterprise networks, service providers and government networks.

When used in conjunction with Palo Alto Networks Next Generation Firewall, Garland Technology Bypass TAPs can provide a comprehensive network monitoring and availability solution for mutual enterprise customers. Bypass TAPs provide enterprise customers with 100% network visibility and availability to network traffic by mitigating risks of scheduled downtime of an inline appliance for configuration changes or maintenance.

palo-alto-networks-logo-300x112Chris Bihary, CEO/Co-owner of Garland, said, “We are excited to be part of the Palo Alto Networks Technology Partner Program. We are an access point for connecting the Palo Alto Networks NextGeneration Firewall in-line without having to worry about network downtime, maintenance or troubleshooting. Our Bypass TAP Technology is available for 1Gigabit, 10Gigabit and 40Gigabit Networks.”

This partnership ensures interoperability between Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls and Garland Technology's line of portable, modular and integrated bypass switches to ensure continuous network monitoring, availability and mitigation under planned or unplanned interruptions to network services.

“We welcome the addition of Garland Technology to our Technology Partner Program,” said Chad Kinzelberg, senior vice president of Business and Corporate Development for Palo Alto Networks. “Garland is focused on helping customers deploy their Next-Generation Firewalls in highly dynamic network environments that require continuous monitoring and uninterrupted availability.”

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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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