Network Associates has released a hardware appliance and
updated software that will extend the reach of that company's
Sniffer network traffic management technology from remote users
into data centres at the network core.
The s6040 appliance is a 4u rack-mounted device that
accommodates the addition of up to four full-duplex Gigabit mounted
"blades", or circuit boards, for specialised applications,
according to Chris Thompson, vice-president of product marketing at
Network Associates.
Those expansion slots will allow s6040 customers to add
functionality such as antivirus and intrusion detection as their
needs change, Thompson said.
The s6040 is part of Network Associates' 6000 line of
appliances, and uses the network fault detection and reporting
capabilities of the Sniffer Distributed Expert software, but is
packaged for high-performance network environments.
The s6040 is capable of performing traffic capture and analysis
at line speed, providing information on traffic patterns and
network performance in real time.
The device can also diagnose problems in networks using
asymmetric routing, load balancing and other high-performance
features. Such features often confuse network intrusion detection
and traffic management products, Thompson said.
Network Associates also announced versions of the Sniffer
Distributed software, as well as the Network Performance
Orchestrator (nPO) Manager and nPO Visualizer software
products.
Sniffer Distributed version 4.3 features improved reporting and
analysis as well as a software-key licensing feature that enables
customers to turn on or off features to suit specific deployment
needs.
The latest release includes a version of Sniffer Distributed
Expert software for network management and Sniffer Distributed
RMON+, a base model appliance with traffic capture and decoding
capabilities specially suited for deployment in branch offices and
remote sites.
In addition to companies with large networks such as financial
services organisations and internet service providers, the s6040
appliance and RMON+ appliance also make the Sniffer technology more
attractive to customers with large, but distributed networks, such
as retail stores.
Network Associates' nPO Manager 2.0, includes support for
multi-trace analysis, which organises and filters network traffic,
allowing administrators to quickly pinpoint the source of problems
on a network as well as improved alarm management capabilities.
The hardware and software is part of what Network Associates
described as an end-to-end network management solution called the
"Sniffer Network Protection Platform".
The platform is designed to detect, monitor and manage traffic
at all points in a network, from edge to core, tying together the
company's performance management and fault detection products with
its management software such as nPO Manager and nPO Visualizer.