Network Visibility Solution, Monitor and Secure the Network

What is a Network Packet Broker?

A Network Packet Broker (NPB) is a device that optimizes the flow of traffic between TAP and SPAN connections and network monitoring, security tools. The packet broker collects traffic from single or multiple network links, filtering and distributing each individual packet to the correct network monitoring tool by load balancing, which enhances the performance of network analysis and security tools.

Why do you need a Network Packet Broker?

In the past, tools would directly attach into the production network through these TAPs or through mirror/SPAN ports. However, with the growing volume of data and the increased mobility of users, devices and applications, tools are having a harder time providing accurate and timely analysis. Network Packet Brokers help you optimize the performance of your monitoring and security tools across the entire network by giving each tool the right packet data, which results in an increase of network efficiency while reducing your costs.

The FS Network Packet Brokers designed for aggregation, filtering, and routing of multiple 1/10/40/100G inputs, used in high sustained bandwidth port monitoring and analysis scenarios.

They bring you the power and flexibility of network traffic management, enhance the performance of network analysis and security tools, helping you solve application performance bottlenecks and troubleshoot problems on the network.

	T5850-48S6Q	T5850-24S2C	T8550-32C	T5850-48S8C
Interfaces	48 x 10G SFP+6 x 40G QSFP+	24 x 10Gb SFP+2 x 100Gb QSFP28	32 x 100Gb QSFP28	48 x 10G SFP+100G QSFP28
1G			-	
10G			-	
40G				
100G	-			
Highlights	L2~L4 Traffic Aggregation, Filtering, Replication, Load Balancing Time Stamps, Editing VLAN of Packets, Packet Truncation, Header Modification Support Web GUI, CLI, Telnet SNMP, SSH, JSON-RPC 1+1 Hot-Swappable Power Supplies and 3+1 Smart Fans

Network Packet Broker Key Features

Aggregation

Aggregate traffic coming from multiple incoming links
Replication

Replicate traffic to multiple monitoring and security tools
Load Balancing

Balance traffic over multiple monitoring and security tools
Filtering

Send only actionable data to each of the connected tools
Packet Slicing

Optimize bandwidth, storage utilization and ensure security
Packet Editing

Ensure packets are sent to the destination address correctly and timely
Tunneling and De-tunneling

ERSPAN tunneling and detunneling, GRE de-tunneling, VXLAN de-tunneling
Time Stamping

Measure the latency for an accurate network analysis

Network Visibility Solution in Data Centers

FS.com provides network visibility of all critical activities and improve risk management for data centers.

Read the solution 

FS Network Packet Brokers FAQs

Q: How does the Timestamp feature of the Network Packet Brokers help me?

A:
Through the source port and timestamp information carried in the packet, the server cluster can know the exact time consumed by the packet at each layer of the data center. The port number identifies the device from which the traffic is coming, and the time stamp of each device calculates the network delay.
Q: I don't understand the message truncation function of the Network Packet Brokers, can you explain?

A:
The message truncation function truncates the received traffic to a packet of 64 to 128Bytes before it is forwarded from the egress. In this way, only the packet header information can be sent to the security device or the traffic analysis device, which can effectively reduce the burden of the back-end analysis system. At the same time, the information carried by the layer is not applied, thus achieving the effect of traffic desensitization.
Q: If there are multiple collection points and traffic is sent to the analysis device, how does the Network Packet Brokers tell the analysis device which collection point the traffic is coming from?

A:
Different vlans can be used to mark traffic collection ports to carry this information.
Q: Can the VxLAN/GRE message be processed?

A:
Yes, the Network Packet Broker can decapsulate the VxLAN header information and divert traffic to specified devices. You can also Tag the decapsulated traffic to carry tenant information.