TMCnet's Network Packet Broker Week in Review

By Jamie Epstein, TMCnet Web Editor

As spring has finally sprung and the flowers bloom right outside my window, I can’t help but think of all of the things plants need to grow – sun, water and even healthy soil. Similar to these plants and their need for certain things to thrive, IT administrators are increasingly turning to network packet brokers as a valuable tool that can help to pinpoint network obstacles, before they influence company operations and enable actions within the infrastructure.

As you can see, just like flowers demand the sun and water to remain alive, corporate networks these days are continuing to turn to network packet brokers (NPB) to measure up to increasing demands.

This week in the space, it was revealed that along with a robust NPB, in order to strengthen network security, proof of concept (POC) is key. “Being able to respond quickly to potential issues and at the same time being able to quickly document testing data from within the POC environment is a big concern for network security, as it forms a basis for further issues to emerge and the responses to same to be generated,” according to a recent article.

 Further, creating the proper framework is also needed in order to protect an enterprise from a variety of cyber attacks, incidents that you now hear about on a daily basis within the news. One important step to be aware of when attempting to safeguard your company is to implement extremely strong password protection. Making a password virtually uncrackable will play a vital role in keeping confidential data under wraps, which in turn will leave an entire customer base very satisfied as they are know they’re safe from harm at all times.

In other news, Ixia (News - Alert) (XXIA) will now be assisting service providers to ramp up the reliability and scalability found within their standards-based software-defined networking technologies, especially when using the solution known as OpenFlow.

According to Michael Haugh, senior market development manager at Ixia, as the OpenFlow standard continues to develop and expand, it has become critical to have test tools available for development and pre-deployment testing. Thus, the company has raised the level of control seen when adjusting flow table entries, and tested how an increasing amount of traffic will be powered successfully via the newly debuted control-plane function.

In addition, the offering leverages switch protocol conformance testing via the IxANVL’s OpenFlow test suite, helping to ensure organizations won’t ever have to suffer due to network downtime.

Closing out the week, Verizon’s (News - Alert) elite major emergency response incident team – MERIT – was recognized for its impressive 20 years of service to enhancing the security of vital network assets during natural disasters and situations deemed as emergencies. With over 30 members on the MERIT team, the group will soon be heading to the Dallas metro area to engage in Verizon's national disaster recovery and hazmat exercises.

“Verizon has network facilities that we protect from all kinds of hazards, but we can't always control the external environment,” said Dick Price, chief business continuity officer for Verizon Communications. “That's why we created MERIT.”

Keeping a network safe while ensuring every action on the infrastructure operates as expected is guaranteed when using a network packet broker, and MERIT is similar to that product in that it assists firms in uncertain times.

There you have it: this week in network packet broker news. Be sure to stay tuned to the Network Packet Broker Community exclusively on TMCnet for all of the most up-to-date information from this growing vertical!

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