In a recent Gartner report, Jonah Kowall and Debra Curtis predict consolidation in the Network Visibility market. The transformations in our space have already started with several recent acquisitions. And we can expect more over the next year or two.

There are significant differences amongst companies lumped together as Network Visibility solutions providers. And the distinctions are becoming more critical to note as network demands increase in complexity, demand greater speed, and straddle physical, virtual and cloud environments. Traffic is soaring, driven by a deluge of applications and growing bandwidth demands.

Companies are in need of unprecedented levels of security and application intelligence.  But the market mostly offers point solutions that plug specific holes without addressing the network architecture as a whole.Over the past sixteen years, Net Optics has moved beyond its origin as as a tap company and grown into an end-to-end solution provider, remaining the leader in our marketplace and expanding into the application performance monitoring market, all while remaining financially independent, stable and reliable. 

The Emergence of Network Packet Brokers

As the Gartner report indicated, Net Optics solutions span several markets, including NPM and the newly minted category of Network Packet Brokers (NPB). As the authors explained, “Growth in the NPB market is a result of the demand for aggregated traffic used by monitoring technologies such as NPM, APM and other security products that need copies of network traffic.”

We listen to our customers and create custom solutions to meet their needs.  Our credo is “Customer First” and it’s our top priority. Industry analysts have consistently recognized Net Optics as one of America’s top private companies. And when we recently entered the performance management arena, our Spyke solution was immediately recognized as a finalist for Best of Interop 2012.

In the long run, only the leading technology will thrive.  That's why Net Optics is proud to be profitable, stable, and the leading provider of intelligent access and monitoring architecture for sixteen years and counting.

xBalancer momentum continues
Last week, we have released xBalancer software version 3.1.0.  The usage of advanced software infrastructure allows us to continue with agile development and introduce many enhancements to this strong platform. Check the software update page (here) to learn more. 
 
We continue to work on the next releases and see a lot of opportunities to take this strong platform to provide solutions even beyond the best of show award.
 
-- Sharon 

Shelton Lu Media Group InterviewChina’s burgeoning telecom carrier market drove high attendance at the SmartPipe Forum and media group event May 15. Hundreds of attendees representing carriers and system integrators came together, sparking a high-energy day for Shelton, who also hosted a networking lunch with key executives from China Telecom and China Mobile.

 

In the afternoon session, Shelton took the podium for a well-attended talk, introducing Net Optics and its growing family of solutions. The Vice President of China Telecom research Institute commented, “we learnt from Shelton’s speech that Net Optics have really good products and customer experience for helping us to build SmartPipe.”

 

After his talk, Shelton addressed a brisk media Q and A, answering questions spanning how appTap can be used to control and optimize traffic, and how it can help operators improve QoS. He also discussed Net Optics’ business expansion in China and the benefits and resources we bring to telecom operators. Questions included how the Net Optics offering differs from F5 in terms of DPI and traffic control, and whether the “reporting system” can be tailored to customers. Shelton shared his optimism and enthusiasm about the rapid growth and development of Smart Pipe and discussed more ways that telecom operators can use Net Optics solutions.

Smart Pipe Forum

 

This is the first time in many years of attendance that I am leaving InterOp after the second day. This is also one of the most exciting InterOp shows I can recall. Well, maybe the 9/11 InterOp in Atlanta was more exciting but not in a good way.

Earlier in the week, at the opening of InterOp West 2012 we announced our expansion of the Phantom Virtualization Tap Solutions. Last year, @ RSA in February 2011, we announced the groundbreaking Phantom Virtual Tap. For those of you who are new to this, Phantom is a software product from Net Optics that enables total visibility into virtual environments including the invisible inter-VM traffic. When we announced it, it was a breakthrough in the Monitoring and Access products. No one has done it before us. What we announced (and released – announcing is the easy partJ) and demoed this week is Phantom Virtualization Taps for VMware vSphere 4.X and 5.X, Citrix Xen, Oracle OVM and Redhat KVM. The rapid adoption of Phantom by many of our enterprise customers came with requests for features, enhancements and improvements. We fulfilled most of those. #1 on the requests list was support of vSphere 5.0 – we deliver. Citrix Xen was a close #2 – it’s working. License per server across the various hypervisors was the partners request – we are happy to provide the most flexible and simple licensing model in virtualization. We won’t ask you to count cores, CPUs, number of VMs or count packets and measure throughput. Our licensing allows you to transition from one platform of choice to another without a licensing change. We made it simple: easy to understand, easy to sell, easy to buy and – most importantly – easy to own.

We also simplified management. One management console for all virtualization taps. Indigo PRO - in addition to managing all of your Net Optics hardware devices and select third party devices – is also the Phantom Virtualization Tap Manager. Better yet, it is free for our Phantom customers (free does not include physical devices management capabilities but we’re happy to provide a super competitive quote). Did you read Sharon’s post on the Indigo PRO virtual appliance? If not, check it out.

I am going to San Francisco to join our team at the booth in Citrix Synergy – I am certain I am going to meet happy folks over there. Many Citrix customers were waiting for the release of Phantom Virtualization Tap for Citrix Xen.

Oh. For those of you who are missing monitoring and access for Microsoft Hyper-V – keep checking in or come see us at Tech Ed North America in June. No hypervisor is left behind.

 

Indigo Pro Virtual Tap Manager

 

  • -- ran

Congratulations to McAfee for winning best of Interop with the new McAfee Network Security Platform XC Cluster. For us, it is a great pleasure as it proves several arguments and product claims that we have made during the past months. 

Data centers have increasingly high-density server environments that require high switching and routing capacity. Organizations face difficult choices when it comes to performance and security, sometimes even limiting security in order to meet performance demands. In today’s threat environment, organizations can no longer afford to sacrifice security for performance. Visibility and management are also key concerns, as networks become more dynamic.

Security solutions vendors and ISV like McAfee uniquely addresses these issues with solutions like the XC Cluster.

According to the press:
The new McAfee Network Security Platform XC Cluster is a high performance solution that gracefully scales to 80 Gbps throughput and 32 million concurrent connections. The latest release of McAfee Network Security Platform allows organizations to scale as you grow....

By using load balancing technology (well, not any kind of load balancing technology :-),

The McAfee Network Security Platform XP Cluster operates at 80 Gbps, which is much faster--by one estimate, two to four times faster--than existing IPS options. It also offers granular multi-tenancy options that are purpose-built for cloud and service provider environments....  (read more here

 

 

-- Sharon 

Image source: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/data-sheets/ds-network-security-platform-xc-cluster.pdf

Net Optics one of three finalists for Best of Interop

What a competition!  The Net Optics team wishes to congratulate NEC ProgrammableFlow Controller, PF6800 for winning Best of Interop in the Management, Monitoring and Testing category this year.  After reviewing 130 applications, the Interop judges chose Net Optics' Spyke family of solutions as one of three finalists in this competitive category --  along with NEC Corporation and Riverbed Technology. In addition to being named a finalist, Spyke was selected to provide application performance monitoring to the InteropNet, Interop’s private cloud the world’s largest temporary network.  Spyke’s critical role in the NOC, along with this award nomination, provide two strong votes of confidence in Net Optics recent expansion into the  APM/NPM market.

By expanding beyond network monitoring and into performance management, we now offer a wide range of visibility and diagnostic solutions for remote sites, data centers, core networks, cloud and virtual networks that are managed by one centralized management platform.  These are exciting times for the network visibility market and we are excited to continually innovate, meeting our customers' changing needs.

If you're attending Interop, stop by the Net Optics booth (#1021), where we're demonstrating Spyke along with the Phantom Virtualization Tap, now optimized across multiple hypervisors including Xen, Oracle VM, vSphere 5 and KVM. Looking forward to seeing you!

Last month Net Optics released xBalancer Software Version 3.0.0. Unlike other releases, we have launched this version to a selected number of customers and our partners before we made it available for all. This week, we will make xBalancer Software Version 3.1.0 easily available via the customer portal.  xBalancer Software Version 3.0.0 is a major release and we wanted to verify a new upgrade and conversion process. Thus far, the feedback is very positive and encouraging. The main features of xBalancer Software Version 3.0.0 are:

 

  • A new browser-based user interface (WebUI) that enables the user to configure and manage the xBalancer options easily over a secure connection (SSL). The user can use the WebUI in addition to the CLI to configure xBalancer options. 
  • New CLI with separate  configuration and execution mode commands. The user can configure the system by using the Configuration mode commands in the CLI. 
  • Very sophisticated and advanced SNMP engine, greatly enhancing the SNMP configuration and trap options. 
  • Many management enhancements like CRM integration, configuration revert options, debugging options and other tools.
  • Simplified MPLS load balancing rules generation.

 

-- Sharon 


For 26 years, Interop has been the leading business technology event, showcasing the latest innovations in IT and business technology while helping attendees gain a comprehensive understanding of those advances.This year’s focus will be on today’s hottest topics in the industry: cloud computing, virtualization, security, mobility and data center advances.

The attractions include in-depth technology tracks and workshops, the largest temporary network in the world, InteropNet, and the thrilling Expo floor itself, with exhibitors demonstrating myriad new features and improvements. All together, Interop is a don’t-miss event for folks who want to be on the leading edge.

World’s Largest Private Network, InteropNet

 InteropNet Hot Stage 2012Interop is all about collaboration and interoperability, and its network, InteropNet, is an example of that. InteropNet’s network architects collaborate to build this totally interoperable network with the purpose of fostering adoption of emerging technologies. At the InteropNet Hot Stage, hundreds of vendors representing many millions of dollars in technology come together to build one of the largest temporary networks at an offsite data center to support Interop’s 15,000 attendees in Las Vegas. The network carries the event’s communications traffic and enables new solutions to be demo’ed with highlighting of new features and improvements.

That said, the Network Operations Center (NOC) team at Interop takes on the challenge of seeking out the highest performing and most reliable solutions on the market. For 14 consecutive years, Net Optics has been delighted to be part of the InteropNet. This year, Spyke™ and Director xStream™ will deliver to the InteropNet the unique application intelligence and total visibility that enable high availability and performance.

By using the Spyke solution, Interop gains the ability to satisfy its users—maintaining exceptional network availability. Director xStream is Net Optics’ advanced data monitoring switch that works as part of the InteropNet solution to aggregate, regenerate and switch traffic. This traffic, traveling from any set of network links and Span ports, can be aggregated into a single stream and regenerated to multiple ports simultaneously without impacting speed or data integrity. Total monitoring visibility into all InteropNet traffic allows the NOC team to monitor critical data and protect network health as well as troubleshoot.

For more information on the Net Optics solutions that are being incorporated in InteropNet, you can download our latest Case Study here:

Net Optics in InteropNet for 14 Consecutive Years!Case Study
Major Retailer Relies On Net Optics’ Spyke™ Solution to Monitor, Manage and Police Bandwidth at Remote Locations

When the Network Operations Center (NOC) team at Interop takes on the challenge of building the world’s largest temporary network, they always seek out the highest performing and most reliable solutions. This network is highly anticipated—not only as a critical resource, but as a showcase for the latest, leading-edge technologies.
Download Case Study »

Best of Interop Finalists

Last week, Interop announced its Best of Interop Finalists in eight categories. With over 130 companies submitting products for consideration, only three finalists were chosen in each category. Judges selected finalists based on “the products they believe have the greatest potential to impact and advance business technology efficiencies.”

Net Optics is honored that Spyke has been selected as a Best of Interop Finalist for the Management, Monitoring & Testing category. You can read the press release here or view the entire list of finalists here. The Best of Interop winners will be announced on Tuesday, May 8 at 3:00 p.m. on the expo floor during Interop Las Vegas.

The eight category areas that Best of Interop finalists were selected for include:

  • Cloud Computing & Virtualization
  • Collaboration
  • Data Center & Storage
  • Management, Monitoring & Testing
  • Networking
  • Performance Optimization
  • Security
  • Wireless & Mobility

Net Optics at Interop

“Among many other capabilities, the new Spyke solution gave us unprecedented visibility into traffic statistics—and its streamlined dashboard showed us information in a crisp, easily understandable view.”
—Senior InteropNet Network Engineer

Net Optics will showcase Best of Interop Finalist, Spyke, and solutions incorporated in InteropNet at Net Optics Booth 1021 in Las Vegas next week on the Expo Floor. If you’re wondering what you should schedule to see on the Expo Floor, don’t miss out on this opportunity to check out Net Optics' latest Intelligent Access and Monitoring Architecture solutions that deliver real-time IT visibility, monitoring and control.

Schedule to meet with one of our experts at Interop for an exclusive demo session on Spyke or other Net Optics solutions. We’ll also be giving away Kindle Fires, Apple Shuffles, and giveaways, so swing by! You’ll be glad you did. See you all at the show!