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

Garland Technology Unveils the PacketMAX Advanced Features to Augment Existing Network Packet Brokers

August 29, 2019

NEW YORK, Aug. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Garland Technology, a leading provider of network test access point (TAP) and packet broker solutions, today announced the release of the new PacketMAX™: Advanced Features appliance. Developed as a purpose-built standalone tool to extend the feature set of any product, the Advanced Features product joins Garland Technology's PacketMAX™ network packet broker product line that includes the PacketMAX: Advanced Features Dedup and PacketMAX: Advanced Aggregators.


"We want to enable IT/NetOp teams with scalable products that are simple to deploy yet offer the high performance needed in today's networks," states Jerry Dillard, CTO/Co-Founder, Garland Technology. "Continuing our deconstructed packet broker approach, we're delivering this feature set as an add-on device without port licenses or hidden costs, allowing teams to deploy what is needed, when it's needed; an approach we feel is unique in the marketplace."

SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS OF PRODUCT

The PacketMAX™: Advanced Features is an advanced feature service node designed to support NTP time stamping, packet slicing, traffic aggregation, GRE termination, ERSPAN Termination, hash-based round-robin load balancing, sFlow support and the ability to pass physical layer errors, among other features.

Adding these features can significantly reduce processing overhead and extend the life of security or monitoring tools by reducing processing and disk space, while also providing the ability to capture and correlate packets, allowing you to properly measure network latency and performance. This is widely seen in heavily regulated industries like the Government and finance.

The continuous release of new products reflects the ongoing momentum Garland Technology is delivering to their customers worldwide.

 

For full press release, please visit: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/garland-technology-unveils-the-packetmax-advanced-features-to-augment-existing-network-packet-brokers-300908524.html

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