Net Optics Blog

IBM Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V

Sharon Besser — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:37:24 +0000

Last week, IBM had a very important announcement (IMO) that did not receive attention at all. The IBMDVS 5000V enables a large-scale, secure, dynamic integrated virtual and physical environment for efficient VM networking that is aware of server virtualization events such as VMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). The IBMDVS 5000V Data Path Module (DPM) is a Layer 2 virtual switch embedded in each ESX hypervisor that provides each VM with a dedicated virtual switch...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Releases, Released

Sharon Besser — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:58:47 +0000

We have released several more upgrade packages this past week. Director xStream 2.5.1: minor release fixing a bug that was causing the internal clock to drift Indigo Pro 2.6: An important release adding many enhancements and improving this product centralized management capabilities as well as enterprise integration iLinkAgg 4.1: An important release adding many SNMP enhancements that allows customers to achieve high level of enterprise integration. In this release we...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

iLinkAgg 4.0 Released

Sharon Besser — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:05:14 +0000

Version 4.0 adds WebUI to the other exsisting managment interfaces. This release features a new Web based graphical user interface to the iLinkAgg device family. The Web Manager provides a GUI for configuring port maps, monitoring device status and traffic statistics with the ability to easily export stastics. as well as configuring network and monitoring ports. The release applies to the following models from the iLinkAgg product...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Virtually Invisible: Meeting Lawful Intercept Challenges in Virtual Environments, Part Two

Ran Nahmias — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:42:38 +0000

Posted on CTR-Computer Technology Review By Ran Nahmias This article is the second in a two-part series introducing the virtual Tap and exploring how it can cost-efficiently meet many of the needs of Lawful Interception. The first part addressed the challenges associated with Lawful Interception (LI) and compliance inherent to virtualization within converged network environments. Today’s rapidly growing data volumes and quickening pace of virtualization raise urgent new challenges...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Israel Supercomputing Conference

Sharon Besser — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:10:08 +0000

The HPC Advisory Council has published the agenda for the Israel Supercomputing Conference coming up next week, on February 7 in Tel Aviv. Featuring speakers from acedemia and industry companies like AMD, Intel, IBM, Mellanox, ScaleMP, Tel Aviv University and yours truly. This one-day event will cover advanced HPC topics from around the world. I am looking forward to hear the opening keynote session by Isaac Ben-Israel, Tel-Aviv University (Cyber Security and high power...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Director xStream, IlinkAgg xStream 2.5 released

Sharon Besser — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:17:24 +0000

Director xStream™ 2.5 and iLinkagg xStream™ 2.5 was released last week, adding additional capabilities and mainly increasing the overall performance envelope of this device. This release includes new, high-performance features for greater accuracy, easier management and higher usability. • Port Tagging! • Ingress and egress VLAN management • Increase tool-sharing capability • Boost Network Intelligence • Increased...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Breaking News! Net Optics Expands Capabilities and Accelerates Global Reach with Acquisition of nMetrics and Triplelayer

Emily Ikuta — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:57:44 +0000

We are excited to announce that we've taken our successful relationship with Triplelayer and nMetrics and made it official…we've acquired the private Australia-based distributor and its sister company, a leader in network insight and analysis software. Customers will immediately find integrated solutions such as the innovative appTap, the market's only remote and branch office visibility and analysis software. The acquisition provides Net Optics with additional...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Virtually Invisible: Meeting Lawful Intercept Challenges in Virtual Environments, Part One

Ran Nahmias — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:07:07 +0000

Posted on CTR-Computer Technology Review By Ran Nahmias This article is the first in a two-part series addressing the challenges associated with Lawful Interception (LI) and compliance inherent to virtualization within converged network environments. Virtualization has provided network architects with exceptional new levels of flexibility and cost-savings in their server deployments. At the same time, however, that flexibility creates new opportunities to conceal unlawful...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

APM/NPM Requires Better Integration with Aggregation Solutions

Sharon Besser — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:22:44 +0000

Garner’s Analyst Jonah Kowall recently published a research note discussing the future of End-User Experience Monitoring in APM (See End-User Experience Monitoring in APM: Past, Present and Future Published: 11 January 2012. Analyst: Jonah Kowall). I thought that I should address the tactical issues of End-User Experience Monitoring in virtual systems. A big problem that was only mentioned briefly. I will. There's one big impact to Kowall’s...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

A Look Back At 2011 and At What’s In Store for 2012

Emily Ikuta — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:40:43 +0000

2012 just got started and already we are busy working on the next line of products to ease your ability to monitor your network and achieve 100% visibility. 2011 was an exceptional year. We celebrated our 15 year anniversary, expanded our global reach in China, South America, and Europe, and innovated new technologies that tackled virtual problems in real time. The launch of the Phantom Virtual Tap and the Phantom HD marked the first and only products to provide...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Get Ready, It's a Jungle Out There

Sharon Besser — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:29:22 +0000

Get Ready It's a Jungle Out There Few days into 2012 and it is clear that corporate risk level are still high and security officers should continue to be on high alert. When it comes to customer data, private and non-public information, application level attacks continue to lead the charts of top attack vectors. It is amazing that organizations are still not adopting strict security programs that enforce security standards. A recent event from Israel hows how a relatively simple attack...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Adaptation of NGFW Requires Rethinking About High Availability

Sharon Besser — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:49:29 +0000

I thought that this time of the year would be a good time to muse on how the increased use and mass adaptation of NGFW is changing the network architecture. The NGFW (Next Generation Firewall) finally arrived. It was here for many years but now being adopted by many more customers. “Traditional” firewall and IPS refresh cycles, as well as the evolved threat landscape have increased demand for new firewall features and capabilities. If years ago we had...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

NET OPTICS WINS RED HERRING GLOBAL 100 AWARD

Emily Ikuta — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:06:55 +0000

Net Optics has been selected as a winner for Red Herring’s Global 100 Award! After winning Red Herring North America earlier this year, Net Optics is honored to be chosen for the global award as well. Expanding globally was a goal for us in 2011 and we look forward to continuing this momentum in the upcoming year. The sky is the limit and we can’t wait for everyone to see what is in the pipeline for 2012. Congratulations to the other Red Herring Global winners! The Global Top...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Fast must become faster

Sharon Besser — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:14:29 +0000

Performance, speed of light and High Performance Computing are becoming (more) common discussion topics recently. If you ask someone for a definition of, HPC, you will get different answers. Wiki, definition of HPC: “High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Today, computer systems approaching the teraflops-region are counted as...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

CloudCon 2011

Sharon Besser — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:41:48 +0000

Last Thursday I enjoyed speaking at the winter CloudCon Israel conference. Net Optics partner in Israel RDT was supporting me with a team demonstrating at the expo booth. The conference was arranged by @fogelmania with a very large number of attendees. The day was very cloudy, one of those rare true winter days (see picture). It was a natural setup for a cloud conference. Barak Regev, Regional Manager, Google Enterprise spoke about "The Collaborative Cloud". Using a...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Network Security Monitoring vs. Network Traffic Monitoring vs. Network Monitoring

Sharon Besser — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:17:28 +0000

Several days ago Jon Oltsik posted a blog regarding network security monitoring, explaining that some of the missing components for identifying and combatting sophisticated attacks in progress are “Granular detail about the network -- network behavior, payload analysis, packet analysis, application-layer analysis, network performance, etc. from layers 2 through 7 of the OSI stack.” I cannot agree more. At Net Optics we categorize “granular...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

How Network Monitoring Could Save You a $1M Fine

christopher@netoptics.com — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:26:58 +0000

Advances in military technology have long contributed to technological innovation in the civilian workplace and in our everyday lives. Whether it is something as wide-reaching and landscape-altering as the World Wide Web, or a daily consumer convenience like GPS systems in our cars, technologies funded by and created for the armed forces are often a step ahead of what’s next for the rest of us. No greater case can be made for the intersection of these two worlds than security. Just as...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Architecting Visibility and Success — The 2011 Net Optics Channel Partner Conference

lannie@netoptics.com — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:37:31 +0000

I just got back from a week in Istanbul, Turkey, a place I never in my life expected to visit. That's just one way Net Optics keeps its annual Channel Partner Conference fresh and exciting, by choosing a wonderful location. With 66 attendees representing 32 partners from 24 countries, it was a great opportunity for partners to share success stories and ideas, and to learn about Net Optics's plans for the upcoming year and beyond. The two-and-a-half day event seemed all too short, barely...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

The server room has (finally) made it to the board room.

Sharon Besser — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:44:35 +0000

Last week, the SEC published a new guidance document that is shaking the security industry with a new mandate for publicly traded companies to disclose real or potential cyber-attacks capable of disrupting business operations or financial stability (see CF Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 2). In other words, risk management, security and vulnerabilities will have to be reported by public companies and should be addressed while public companies are performing M&A activities....

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

NEW: DNN-101: Director Network Module with Virtual Zero Delay Technology

Sharon Besser — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:37:22 +0000

In case that you did not read the news or the product page: Net Optics has released a new Director Network Module (DNM) that includes the new Virtual Zero Delay Technology allowing it to keep traffic passing should a Director or Director Pro lose power. VZD provides similar functionality as Zero Delay technology implemented in network taps such as the Gig Zero Delay Tap, using different implementation. Customers using the new Director solution also gain the important...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Update: Tap Mode in iBypass Switches

lannie@netoptics.com — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:19:17 +0000

A while back, I wrote about using Bypass Switches as Taps. I'd like to tell you about some improvements we've made to increase the flexibility of Tap mode in the iBypass Swtich starting with code version 2.2.1. With code prior to V2.2.1, the behavior is as described in the previous post: When the Heartbeat timeout parameter is set to zero (command: "set timout 0"), the iBypass Switch is forced into Bypass ON mode. In Bypass ON mode, network traffic is copied to the...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Director Software Version 5.0

Sharon Besser — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:23:58 +0000

Director Software Version 5.0 was released today. It is a major release with many enhancements and improvements. It also includes fixes for issues reported by our customers and Net Optics technical staff. Please visit the software update page for the release highlights. Customer with software subscription and active software maintenance contracts can visit the customer portal to download the upgrade package and review the documentation, release...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

The benefits of Cut-Through switching architecture

Sharon Besser — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:28:32 +0000

In many data centers, latency and jitter are the most important metrics. Even the small amounts of delay (latency) or delay variation (jitter) introduced by a switch can have a profound impact on application performance. In the data center and inside the LAN where devices are only a few meters apart every microsecond counts. Latency is also important limiting factor for high frequency computing (HPC): The more transactions an organization can process in a given unit of time, the...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Net Optics Has Been Chosen for the Inc. 500 | 5000 List for Second Consecutive Year

hylan@netoptics.com — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:27:29 +0000

For the second year in a row, Net Optics has been chosen as one of America’s 5000 fastest-growing private companies by the editors of Inc. Magazine! Each year, the business and IT media pundit sifts through more than 30 million U.S. companies for those worthy of inclusion in the elite Top 5,000 of highest performers. These companies represent the fastest-growing and market-savviest upper levels of their respective marketplaces. Net Optics is very thankful to have received the...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Ran Nahmias, Director of Cloud Solutions will be presenting at Interop's Speaker Center

hylan@netoptics.com — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 23:04:31 +0000

Net Optics will be at this year's upcoming Interop New York at Booth 611 with Director of Cloud Solutions Ran Nahmias presenting at the Speaker Center. Ran's presentation will be in focus of virtual networks, virtual switches and how they are implemented in ESX environments. The session will take a deep technological dive to cover best practices in solving today's biggest challenges in security, compliance and visibility for virtualization. Ran will also cover the existing...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Director Walk-Through Videos

lannie@netoptics.com — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:13:25 +0000

Director's Web GUI and Command Line Interface can be a bit intimidating when you first get started. Visit the Net Optics Videos page to view walk-throughs of these two management interfaces. As of this writing, they reside in the third row of videos on the page.

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Scary Masks

lannie@netoptics.com — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:44:04 +0000

Halloween is coming up soon—the candy and costumes are already showing up in the stores. So it's a good time to talk about masks; in this case, masks in filters. In the Net Optics Director family of filtering monitoring switches, most of the filter qualifiers accept masks. For example, filter add ip_src=10.60.4.0 ip_src_mask=255.255.255.0 in_ports=... The mask says that the first three octets of the IP source address are significant, and the last octet is to be ignored. In other...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Engineering Creativity: How to Retain and Maintain a Talented Workforce

christopher@netoptics.com — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:26:16 +0000

Recruiting, cultivating, and maintaining talented employees is a job in and of itself. Whether the job market is slow or sizzling, there are steps employers can take to make sure they attract, keep, and develop a talented workforce. From day one, Net Optics has made job satisfaction and professional development a top priority. Now we’re ready to share some of our secrets so our partners and customers can reap the benefits of happy and motivated employees. Click on...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Clear Skies Ahead: Total Visibility for Network Monitoring Across the Cloud

christopher@netoptics.com — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:13:48 +0000

As VMworld gets underway in Las Vegas, we are preparing to introduce the newest member of the Net Optics Phantom™ Solutions suite, the Phantom HD™. Voila! Now you can have 100% visibility for inspection of virtual and physical traffic across locations. This innovative solution allows businesses to keep tabs on traffic that had previously remained invisible. Click on the video to hear Ran Nahmias, Director, Virtualization & Cloud Solutions, describe the new Phantom HD and how it...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.

Will You Let The (Real) Cat Guard The (Virtual) Cream?

Sharon Besser — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 05:30:36 +0000

VMworld is next week. Obviously the entire IT community is focused and even the announcement of Apple’s CEO will not stop the clock. VMware vSphere 5 will be in the center of conversations. In another blog post, Ran covered the technology and functional limitations of the built-in mirroring ports of vSphere 5 and comparing it with Phantom. In a recent conversation with a Chief Security Officer of a medium-sized corporation he explained to me why he will never be...

Visit http://www.netoptics.com/blog to read more.