Network Packet Brokers: Getting Your Questions Answered

By Peter Bernstein, Senior Editor

Back in July, I posted an article about the emerging network packet broker (NPB) sector. The focus at that time was on what NPBs are, what they do and why they are important. 

As noted, we live in an era where network performance must be almost beyond five nines reliability. In addition, security and the ability to accommodate the rapidly changing rules surrounding compliance are essential. This means that assuring all of the tools IT departments have heavily invested in and rely on — to measure performance, report and analyze anomalies, remediate issues and gain intelligence that enables you to take proactive measures to mitigate risks — are high-performance themselves.

The bottom line is that as an IT asset manager you need to know your performance monitoring tools are delivering maximum value. You need to break down the silos that have prevented a holistic view of your performance monitoring environment and be able to turn the data generated into actionable business intelligence — enabling the ability to better “sweat” these critical assets and leverage them to allow you to perform more efficiently and effectively. 

Indeed, this need to extract maximum value from the network by keeping real-time close tabs on performance through optimal utilization of monitoring tools is precisely way the NPB layer was quickly come into vogue including the validation of its criticality by Gartner (News - Alert) Group and others.

Just as a quick refresh, an NPB appliance provides a powerful dashboard interface for real-time views of the performance of your tools. Along with providing demonstrable cost savings from a centralized approach, as I noted a huge benefit here is how the appliance can send only actionable data to each tool.

What you need to know    

Now for those questions you need to have answered:

• Are you experiencing growing complexity and service requirements (e.g. app-level monitoring, new security needs, global scope), with limited ability to deploy new tools?
• Do you need to leverage existing tools within a higher speed network? 
• Are you getting the information you need to ensure proper application performance, security and service availability?

The interesting thing about emerging NPB solutions is that they enable IT asset managers to do more with less. In fact, you are invited to join myself and Gina Fallon director, Solutions Education and Standards, VSS Monitoring (News - Alert) for an insightful webinar, “Network Packet Brokers: A strategic approach for optimizing network & security monitoring infrastructure and ROI,” to be held on Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 2:00 p.m. EDT. We will be exploring the answers to the above questions as well as drilling down on such things as:

• How you can achieve effective monitoring of application and network performance, with optimal tool efficiency
• Why an NPB solution can reduce network downtime and churn
• How to manage network upgrades (e.g. 1•10•40G Ethernet) and their impact on supporting infrastructure (monitoring, security, etc)

There will also be time to answer specific questions from participants about the challenges they are experiencing. The provisioning and management of an environment that ensures the best tools are in the right hands at the right time to assure optimal risk management and mitigation.

Protecting your network and making sure it is working as hard as it should, safely and securely is not easy. In fact, it is getting more complicated. This does not mean it has to be harder. Find out why an NPB implementation can be the solution that is right for you.

To register now for this not-to-miss event, click here.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.

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