Distributed Traffic Capture System™ is architected as a layer between network infrastructure and the analytical equipment. Comprising a few to hundreds of interconnected traffic capture devices, the devices operate as one virtual system using VSS-proprietary vStack⁺™.

The Distributed Traffic Capture System collects a copy of traffic either via inline taps or from switch SPAN ports at capture points anywhere in the world. It grooms the traffic and distributes it to any/all network monitoring and security equipment connected to the system—even over a WAN. The grooming operations include Selective Aggregation, highly granular Hardware-Based Filtering on Layers 2 to 7, packet slicing, session-aware Session-Aware Load Balancing, and Port and Time Stamping. These grooming and optimization operations ensure that each monitor tool receives only the traffic of interest to its function. These operations occur in real time and solely in hardware.

VSS Monitoring’s systems approach to traffic capture represents a paradigm shift away from traditional, non-scalable traffic capture to a highly flexible integrated visibility solution that accommodates growing networks and emerging monitoring requirements. Distributed traffic capture systems give analytical equipment the ability to see into the farthest reaches of even the largest networks.

Complexities from multi-vendor, multi-technology sources challenge IT enterprises trying to keep up with the high frequency of changes in today’s networks. An up-to-date network diagram is essential to demonstrate regulatory compliance, accelerate network troubleshooting, and manage network assets efficiently. Creating a network diagram manually is extremely time consuming and typically represents only limited aspects of the network at a high cost.

OPNET’s NetMapper™ eliminates the burdensome effort associated with network diagramming by automatically publishing up-to-date network diagrams containing detailed physical and logical views, including Layer 2/3, OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS, VLANs, and BGP. NetMapper creates rich, multi-layered network diagrams in the industry standard Microsoft Visio® format.

Key Features

• Plan for growth-projecting future traffic and right sizing links and tunnels to meet service level objectives
• Perform automated off-line MPLS traffic engineering, leveraging exclusive OPNET algorithms that optimize resource utilization and ensure service survivability
• Ensure network survivability, predicting the impact of failing nodes, links, or resource group
• Validate the impact of configuration changes on network behavior and performance prior to deployment
• Evaluate a wide range of “what-if” scenarios in a virtual network environment with full behavioral understanding of devices, protocols and services, without affecting the operational network
• Exclusive multi-layer analysis and planning for IP/MPLS over DWDM networks. Multi-layer support encompasses the underlying optical transport network through integration with SP Guru® Transport Planner
• Predict the network Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for planned voice-over-IP services with an automated VoIP Readiness Assessment
• Leverage optional IPv6 capabilities to facilitate transitioning to IPv6 with an automated IPv6 readiness assessment and IPv6 migration

“Knowing what’s on your network” is goal number one for many network operators. But achieving this goal has been difficult. While Wireshark has traditionally served as the industry’s leading protocol analysis application, with more than 900 decoders already available, this open source solution has lacked an intuitive user interface and served mainly in stand-alone “sniffer” deployments. With Endace’s NinjaProbe deployed as a multi-function probe and sensor, network operators not only enjoy the opportunity to consolidate their monitoring infrastructure, but also the chance to integrate Wireshark into an enterprise-grade analytical solution – all courtesy of the NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analysis. application. The NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analyzer meets the challenges of “knowing what’s on your network” through a consolidated probe and intuitive graphical user experience that supports drag-and-drop filtering of live and captured data, for ready and thorough analysis of all network traffic.

At the heart of the solution, a CACE Pilot Network Analysis server is installed on the NinjaProbe appliance. Seamlessly communicating with the windows-based CACE Pilot Network Analysis client, the NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analyzer provides metadata summaries of large captured files, for immediate graphical analysis of network traffic characteristics. For deeper-dive analysis, the NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analyzer client can request .pcap file transfers for the data being analyzed. This data is transferred from the NinjaProbe appliance to a Wireshark instance, thereby providing filtered packet captures for immediate dissection and forensic analysis. This avoids the costly and time-consuming alternative of transferring large raw packet captures across the internal network.

Complementing NinjaProbe’s high-density data storage, in-built replay mechanisms, and the openness to drive multiple 3rd party applications, NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analyzer provides an out-of-the box network visualization application that raises the bar for intuitive interfaces and yet refuses to lock customers in to a proprietary vendor solution.

Solutions across all market segments

Endace Data Acquisition and Generation (DAG®) cards have been sold into more than 40 countries worldwide, to blue chip corporations, Government agencies, tier one communications service providers and independent software vendors. In each case, a real need for “no holes” packet capture, accurate time-stamping, latency measurement and ultimate performance is quickly apparent, and Endace technology has been broadly adopted as a foundation for myriad monitoring applications and services.

Across all market segments, the need for unobtrusive network monitoring continues to grow. As a means to protect against intrusion, analyze traffic profiles, generate Netflow records, capture huge amounts of data, recreate or stress-test network scenarios and meet compliance obligations, Endace’s NinjaProbe appliance has also helped customers looking for a complete out-of-the-box experience. As a hardened, multi-function probe and sensor, a single NinjaProbe can replace a rack of application-specific alternatives. Securely managed through our Central Management Server, customers across all market segments are discovering NinjaProbe to be the platform of choice for local and remote deployments. With the addition of the NinjaProbe CACE Pilot Network Analysis Component is helping network operators across the globe to rapidly drill into traffic usage patterns and analyze packet captures.

For customers looking to develop their own applications, port home-grown designs, or run open source solutions, Endace’s NinjaBox meets the demands in both commercial and government markets. As a tuned development environment, NinjaBox offers the flexibility and breadth of DAG® APIs in a pre-qualified server environment.

From latency measurement in financial markets, to high speed packet capture for governments, and intuitive network monitoring for any large enterprise, Endace products, consulting and support are available for your high performance applications.