What Makes Sense?
Managing and securing networks has become increasingly complex in today’s interconnected world. The sheer volume of data flowing through networks and the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats demands robust solutions to ensure optimal performance and safeguard sensitive information.
This is where network packet brokers play a crucial role.
Network packet brokers act as intelligent intermediaries, capturing, aggregating, and distributing network traffic to various monitoring and security tools. They enable network administrators to monitor, analyze, and secure their infrastructure, enhancing operational efficiency and threat detection capabilities.
Among the leading players in the network packet broker market are Keysight/Ixia Packet Broker but there are lots of competitors. Most offer a range of features and functionalities designed to meet the diverse needs of organizations. However, when it comes to selecting the ideal solution for your network, understanding the strengths and differences among industry giants is essential.
Related Content: Don’t Let Your Packet Broker Lose It
In this article, we delve into a comprehensive comparison of Keysight/Ixia Packet Broker and other general network packet broker solutions, to answer the question: “What’s better?” We explore the key features, performance, scalability, ease of use, and customer support offered by each solution. By the end, you’ll clearly understand which network packet broker aligns better with your specific network management and security requirements.
Introducing Keysight (formerly Keysight/Ixia) Packet Broker
Keysight Technologies, Inc., a renowned technology company at the forefront of accelerating innovation and ensuring connectivity and security across enterprises, service providers, and governments, has recently taken a significant step in evaluating the capabilities of its Vision X network packet broker (NPB). In collaboration with The Tolly Group, a trusted name in independent testing and third-party validation, Keysight commissioned a comprehensive assessment to compare the advanced packet processing, particularly deduplication, and application intelligence of Vision X vs. general’s GigaVUE-HC3 with Control Card version 2 multi-purpose visibility fabric.
In today’s network landscape, network visibility holds paramount importance for effective network security and performance management. The reliability and intelligence in processing network traffic rely heavily on network packet brokers. These crucial components play a pivotal role in detecting, reporting, filtering, and presenting network traffic and application data consistently and accurately to security monitoring tools, thereby achieving comprehensive visibility.
According to the findings from The Tolly Group, Keysight’s Vision X emerges as a true leader in architectural superiority. Vision X showcases its innovative design and optimized memory, delivering exceptional stability and consistent application intelligence, even during CPU overload scenarios. These remarkable attributes set Vision X apart and reinforce its position as a top-tier network packet broker solution.
Related content: Keysight/Ixia’s GUI is faster, and more accurate than competitors’ command lines or Flowmaps.
How Keysight (formerly Keysight/Ixia) Compares to the General Competition
The performance of a network packet broker is crucial for efficient traffic processing. Keysight’s Vision X has been commended for its advanced packet processing capabilities, including deduplication and stable application intelligence, even under CPU overload. It showcases architectural superiority with its innovative design and memory optimization. Other competitors’ products may have their strengths, but specific performance comparisons among solutions would require further evaluation.
Regarding network security, performance, and troubleshooting, it is crucial not to compromise on network data. Some packet brokers have the potential to drop packet data under specific conditions due to their architecture. This creates a significant concern because your Intrusion Detection System (IDS) might miss critical security threats, potentially up to 60%, without your knowledge.
In contrast, Keysight/Ixia (part of Keysight Technologies) takes a different approach by utilizing FPGA architecture for their higher-end features, such as deduplication. This architecture enables Keysight/Ixia’s Vision packet brokers to process traffic at line speed without any processing delays or feature compatibility problems typically associated with CPU-based packet brokers like general. With Keysight/Ixia’s solution, you can ensure that all network data is captured, providing comprehensive visibility without sacrificing security.
Don’t become a victim of limitations when it comes to your visibility solution. Instead, choose Keysight’s line of Vision packet brokers and taps to gain the advantage of seeing EVERYTHING and more. By embracing Keysight’s approach, you can achieve the dual objectives of enhanced visibility and robust security, empowering you to monitor, analyze, and protect your network infrastructure effectively.
Visibility plays a vital role in maintaining network security. By leveraging the resources provided by Keysight, you can establish a strong foundation for your network security strategy. Their Vision packet brokers and taps enable you to achieve comprehensive visibility into your network, ensuring that no critical data goes unnoticed. With Keysight’s solutions, you can proactively identify potential security threats, streamline performance management, and efficiently troubleshoot issues, fortifying your network against emerging risks and optimizing overall network operations.
Regarding network security and performance, don’t settle for compromised visibility. Trust in Keysight’s expertise and advanced solutions to empower your organization with the comprehensive visibility and robust security measures required to stay ahead in today’s evolving threat landscape.
Start Mastering Network Performance Management Now.
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Mastering Network Performance Management
In the ever-evolving digital realm, where businesses thrive or falter based on the performance of their network, the significance of network performance management cannot be overstated.
That’s why we want to shed some light on network performance management and ensure your organization is completely up to date!
Network performance management is key to unleashing the hidden potential within your network infrastructure, propelling it to deliver exceptional performance and unrivaled productivity.
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Understanding Network Performance Management
To grasp the essence of network performance management, let’s look at its core. Essentially, network performance management encompasses a comprehensive set of activities and practices aimed at vigilantly monitoring, astutely analyzing, and meticulously optimizing the performance of your network infrastructure. It acts as an ever-vigilant sentinel, guarding against any impediments or bottlenecks that might hinder the seamless operation of your network.
Achieving mastery over network performance management necessitates a profound understanding of its fundamental components and objectives. From diligent performance monitoring and meticulous capacity planning to adept troubleshooting and optimization, these objectives equip you with the power to foresee and forestall potential setbacks. Furthermore, we’ll explore the prevalent network performance issues organizations face, empowering you to address and overcome them preemptively.
Benefits of Network Performance Management
There are so many benefits that come with effective network performance management. First and foremost, it ensures that your network is reliable and available whenever you need it. Forget about frustrating downtime and prepare for a network that keeps running smoothly.
That’s certainly not all. Network performance management also strengthens your network’s security defenses and helps detect potential threats. With a powerful monitoring system, you can identify and stop cyber-attacks before they cause any harm to your organization.
Furthermore, this approach optimizes the use of your network resources so that you’re not wasting bandwidth or suffering inefficiencies. You’ll unlock the full potential of your network, leading to increased productivity and the ability to focus on what really matters.
Don’t forget about bandwidth management and optimization techniques. You can achieve peak performance without compromise by strategically allocating and fine-tuning your network resources. Stay in control of your network’s destiny with real-time monitoring and proactive alerts informing you about any performance issues.
Network Performance Management Best Practices
To safeguard your network effectively, it’s essential to implement best practices for network performance management. By following these straightforward yet intelligent tips, you can enhance the performance of your network and ensure that everything is running optimally.
Firstly, make use of performance monitoring and analysis tools. These tools allow you to monitor your network’s health and performance in real time. By closely monitoring your network, you can quickly identify potential network-limiting abnormal activities, enabling you to take immediate action to address them.
Secondly, consider adopting network traffic analysis and visibility solutions. These solutions provide a clear understanding of what’s happening on your network. This can help influence your network performance management plans and policies, workflows, and responsibilities assigned within your organization based on concrete data.
Furthermore, implementing effective bandwidth management and optimization techniques is crucial. This ensures optimal network performance. You can prevent bottlenecks and optimize your network environment by allocating network resources wisely, prioritizing critical applications, and limiting bandwidth usage for non-essential activities.
In addition, real-time monitoring and alerts play a vital role in network performance management. Deploy monitoring solutions that continuously track your network for any suspicious activities. Poor network performance is usually due to some kind of malware that can quickly result in a security breach. While network performance management differs from network security management, the two go hand in hand.
Sometimes it can take a while to identify a pattern of performance issues. An effective network monitoring tool logs all performance issues, including relevant information such as under what circumstances they occurred. Being able to refer to a log of past concerns allows your team to assess problem areas that require more in-depth investigation or closer monitoring.
By implementing these simple yet powerful network performance management best practices, you can establish a comprehensive look of how your network is performing and flag any anomalies that may indicate a security threat while maintaining your network efficiency. Safeguard the integrity and confidentiality of your network and data, ensuring a productive environment for your organization.
If you’re ready to safeguard your network with a performance management solution, Get Network Visibility is here to help. Besides our amazing library of free online educational content and resources, we’re here to talk! Schedule a call with Keysight/Ixia today.
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More Information
If you want more information on this topic, check out the following resources:
- Keysight’s 2023 Security Report (report)
- How to Make a Hybrid Visibility Architecture Successful (white paper)
