Network Visibility Solutions for 40Gbit and 100Gbit

The complexity of networks is increasing day by day and therefore monitoring has become more difficult. Without accurate monitoring, it is extremely tough to deliver customer satisfaction in cases where poor service goes undetected or due to lack of information needed to identify whether the fault lies with network carriers or video broadcasters. The lack of visibility into the network and QoE can result in dissatisfied customers and, further, revenue loss.

When choosing the network visibility solution for your organisation or data center, scalability is a key factor. With the rising demand to support high bandwidth applications, current data rates will not be able to meet the needs of the future. The performance needed for Layer 1 network visibility solutions includes two parameters – bandwidth and insertion loss. Cubro offers optical TAPs, copper TAPs and aggregator TAPs which are designed to enable flawless in-line monitoring of 1G, 10G, 40G and 100G networks. This is accomplished by putting each TAP through a rigorous testing process that confirms that each fibre of the TAP functions as intended up to 100Gbps and that each link meets or exceeds industry standard figures for insertion loss.

For more intelligent applications like load balancing and packet slicing at higher OSI layers, Cubro offers advanced Network Packet Brokers that support 40Gbit and 100Gbit link speeds. For instance, Cubro supports packet slicing with CRC recalculation on multiple 100 Gbit traffic streams per device. The EXA32100 is the only multiple 100 Gbit Network Packet Broker that supports packet slicing at line rate on all 100 Gbit interfaces simultaneously. Furthermore, there are three options for how much header information is to be retained (64, 128 or 256 bytes) allowing the user to fine-tune the header information that is forwarded to the monitoring system. This feature can be configured on any output port, and it supports dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

The significant advantage of packet slicing at such a high-performance level is maximizing the efficiency of your monitoring tools. This application reduces the traffic load to the tools by a factor of 10, the implication of which is that a 100Gbit tool can handle 1TB traffic from the network. Another benefit of the Cubro system is that the packet slicing function is performed in hardware by the switching silicon and not by an attached CPU; this prevents jitter and packet loss because of the silicon’s deterministic processing unlike that of a CPU-based design.

Cubro’s high-density Network Packet Brokers optimize the performance of network analysis and security tools by filtering traffic before it reaches the tools. This assists network engineers in quickly solving application performance issues and troubleshooting problems on the network. The benefits gained by ensuring that a monitoring or security appliance receives all of the traffic required to perform its role and nothing unnecessary will increase by orders of magnitude as bandwidth speeds continue to grow. At the same time, it will require ever more powerful and efficient Network Packet Brokers to deliver traffic to the aforementioned tools. Packet Brokers, such as the EXA32100, with a multitude of high bandwidth interfaces, reduces Operational Expenses by reducing the number of Packet Broker units that would be required in these applications, eases requirements on the power budget, and makes efficient use of rack space. Granted, port density means very little if the unit cannot effectively process and perform its functions across all interfaces which is what drives Cubro to build ever more performant hardware on the cutting edge of Packet Broker design and lead the way in high bandwidth, high port density environments.