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Network Packet Brokers

Maximise your investment in monitoring and security tools with Network Packet Broker

Networks have become increasingly complex due to the adoption of transformational technologies including 5G SA, SDN, SD-WAN, virtualization, and IoT. This has created ‘blind spots’. Blind spots are network traffic that is not visible to network monitoring, security and analytics tools and can hide and obscure network performance and security threats.

What is the role of a network packet broker?

Network Packet Brokers (NPBs) remove network traffic blind spots, optimize network traffic, filter network traffic, load balance, and support high speed connections (currently) up to 400Gbps. NPBs receive and aggregate network traffic from switch SPAN ports or network TAPs which can then be filtered, deduplicated, and further optimized to enable more efficient use of security and performance tools.

What makes Cubro’s network packet broker different?

Cubro’s advanced NPBs are designed to meet the needs of complex networks and support numerous tunnelling protocols including MPLS, MPLS over UDP, GRE, NVGRE, VXLAN, CFP, ERSPAN and GTP. The key to realizing such an advanced feature set is that we are using high-performance silicons giving us the flexibility and performance to truly function as a Next Generation Network Packet Broker.

The Solution –
Sample deployment illustration

Find the Network Packet Broker that fits your network

Next generation Network Packet Brokers with built-in CPU up to Layer 7

These products feature one or two built-in high-performance ARM CPUs for most demanding applications like Deduplication, Regex Search filtering or NetFlow generation. Moreover, these products allow to run Custos which is our own embedded network monitoring software based on DPI including Application filtering.

Omnia120
48 x 1G/10G via SFP/SFP+ and 4 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28, dual CPU
EXA48200
48 x 1G/10G via SFP/SFP+ and 2 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28, single CPU

Advanced Network Packet Brokers for Layer 5+

These advanced network packet brokers provide perfect solution for any tunneled traffic by allowing to filter inside tunnel and remove tunnels. These packet brokers also offer all the features of classical layer 4 products.

EXA32400
32 x 100G/400G via QSFP28/QSFP-DD
EXA32100A
2 x 10G/25G via SFP+/SFP28 and 32 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28
EXA64100
2 x 10G/25G via SFP+/SFP28 and 64 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28

Classical Network Packet Brokers up to Layer 4

The perfect choice to aggregate, filter and load-balance IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. 

Aggregator C32
16 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28 and 16 x 100G via QSFP28
EX48200
48 x 1G/10G via SFP/SFP+ and 2 x 40G/100G via QSFP/QSFP28
EX6-3
48 x 10/100/1000 via SFP  and 4 x 1G/10G via SFP/SFP+
EX5-3
48 x 10/100/1000 Base-T (Copper) and 4 x 1G/10G via SFP/SFP+
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Detailed Cubro Packet Broker Comparison Matrix

Compare features and functionalities of our network packet brokers

Business Value of Using a Network Packet Broker

  • Improve network performance
  • Improve network security posture, network analytics and business continuity
  • Reduce network infrastructure and network tool costs and TCO
  • Increase network tools’ life span and ROI
  • Extend network tools’ life span 
  • Improve operational flexibility, while not affecting the original network traffic 
  • Easy planning and budgeting – transparent pricing with, typically, all features and capacity included

What Next Generation Network Packet Broker means to Cubro

In recent years, the demand for network visibility tools has increased because they make existing monitoring tools work better and save costs for the users. Network Packet Brokers (NPBs) gather and aggregate network traffic from switch SPAN ports or network TAPs and then tap that traffic to enable the more efficient use of security and performance tools – in-line and/or passive. They make existing security and performance tools work better, enabling users to get more out of their investments and lengthen the life of these tools.

The growing complexity of enterprise networks has created a need for more effective solutions to the issues related to specific blind spots. Companies look for cost-efficient solutions that cater to their specific needs—high port density, agility, security, scalability and network visibility. As a result, instead of adding new monitoring tools which lead to higher costs, hours of configuration time and additional management complexities, the companies use NPBs which enable the migration to higher network speeds and increase the effectiveness of security and monitoring tools that are already in place.

Preventing failures is much more effective than repairing them, especially when it comes down to providing a reliable and secure data environment to customers. With proper visibility into your network, you can capture data the data you need to prevent costly outages. NPBs provide comprehensive network visibility solutions for monitoring networks. The final goal of a visibility architecture is to be able to capture data smartly at regular intervals for troubleshooting or any other monitoring needs.

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