Computer Networks for businesses

Make your computer networks and tool ROI stronger

Managing the long-term cost of computer networks security and monitoring tools is important. Simply put, tools are expensive. This is why up to 65% of businesses need to extend the life of their existing tools.

One way to maximize your return on investment (ROI) is to optimize your tool deployment strategy and extend their lives with a visibility architecture.

A primary obstacle for businesses in acquiring maximum value from their tools is the architecture. This is why 47% of businesses are not properly utilizing the tools they have in place.

Research shows that around 43% of businesses do not have enough data access through Switched Port Analyzers (SPANs) or taps to feed the tools. At the same time, up to 25% of network tools are often overloaded and dropping packets.

The budget for new tools is another common problem, especially after a network upgrade. An upgrade from 10GE to 40GE technology will cost a lot, especially for the tools that are needed to support 40GE.
What businesses need is a way to stretch their budget dollars but not sacrifice capabilities. A third issue is the ability to react as fast as possible to security threats.

You need computer networks access to already be in place for your tools if a security event is detected or suspected. Time spent waiting on change board approvals usually increases the cost per incident.

Visibility architectures are the solution. Key features, such as set and forget network access from taps and network packet broker (NPB) features like packet filtering, deduplication, aggregation, and load balancing, solve the three issues just mentioned.

How to increase the value of out-of-band tools? – Computer Networks

Increasing tool value is easy. You can accomplish this by implementing a proper visibility architecture. Step one is to optimize tool deployment. This includes centralizing as many of the tools as possible, allowing you to realize economies of scale and maximize the utilization of each tool.

The second step is to optimize tool access to network data. This is best achieved by inserting multiple taps into the network. This allows you to collect data from across the computer networks, not just from a few SPAN ports that might be conveniently located within the data center.

You need access to the complete (not summarized) data throughout the network so that you can get clear visibility into network issues and eliminate problems as fast as possible. You do not want your tools sitting idle.

The common example of out-of-band tool deployments BEFORE a visibility architecture is implemented

The third step is to insert NPBs to filter and groom the data. NPBs remove unwanted and duplicate data and then aggregate data streams to your tools. Just as importantly, NPBs can load balance higher–data rate traffic across lower–data rate tools to extend the life of your existing security and monitoring tools as the core network speed continues to increase and as your tools age.

Example of out-of-band tool deployments AFTER a visibility architecture is implemented.

How to increase the value of online tools? – Computer Networks

Proper deployment of security and monitoring tools directly in the path of data flowing through the network can be a challenge, as well. These tools get very expensive very quickly. One way to increase tool value in this situation is to insert an NPB between the tool and the bypass switch.

This NPB can then filter out unnecessary traffic and remove load for the security tool(s). For instance, maybe you have an intrusion prevention system (IPS) deployed. One way to improve the efficiency of the IPS is to remove
traffic like voice, video, music, etc., that does not need to be inspected.

Up to 35% of this type of traffic can be removed by the NPB before it is sent to an IPS. The traffic that does not need
inspection is automatically routed back to the bypass switch and re-enters the network. This NPB capability instantly enhances the processing capability of your IPS by up to 35%.

Example of inline tool deployment AFTER a visibility architecture is implemented.

A well-designed visibility architecture is a low-cost way to significantly maximize the ROI of your security and monitoring tools while increasing the overall value of your monitoring solution. Visibility architectures also allow for immediate inline and out-of-band access points to check for network security intrusions.

Musato Technologies provides the right type of visibility equipment to help you maximize your ROI. This includes a full range of copper and fiber taps, bypass switches, virtual data center, and cloud taps, inline packet brokers for
high availability solutions, and out-of-band packet brokers for all of your other monitoring needs.

Author: Gideon E. M

Gideon Ebonde M. is the CEO and Chief Software Architect at Musato Technologies. He is experienced Software developer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. He has a strong engineering professional skilled in Mobile Application Development, Enterprise Software, AI, Robotics, IoT, Servers, Cloud and business application. He is an accomplished DevOps software engineer and a visionary computer scientist and engineer.