Network packet brokers is a term that defines hardware-based appliances that drive an unparallel level of visibility. This next-generation solution improves network monitoring significantly, representing a passive visibility layer that network traffic passes through. As the weeks pass and the weather outside feels like fall, the space only continues to grow as more businesses realize the benefits that can be seen when implementing this offering.

This week, VSS Monitoring (News - Alert), a leader in the network packet broker space, made headlines as it continues to expand its footprint into multiple industries including: financial, government, education and healthcare due to the fact that all of these businesses crave a way to ramp up performance in their networks.

Tony Zirnoon, senior director of Global Security Strategy and Enterprise Marketing at VSS Monitoring, revealed that VSS’s new functionality for visibility across networks has been extended into virtual environments which enables enterprises all over the world to gain access to much more efficient tools to manage their overall infrastructure.

In regards to network packet brokers’ capability to fully support virtual network tags (VN-Tag) stripping and filtering, Zirnoon added that VSS tools deliver full visibility and management of packets across Cisco (News - Alert) Nexus network infrastructures as well as of packets across physical and virtual environments. This feature makes the offerings from VSS Monitoring one-of-a-kind.

In other news, iDirect (News - Alert), a provider of IP-based satellite communications, joined hands with global satellite communications provider IsoTropic Networks, in order to enable the company to implement the innovative functions of the iDirect Evolution platform with its iDX 3.1 software. This pact was made with the intention of raising the efficiency of the company’s global satellite network.

Some of the benefits from this collaborative effort including cost reductions, improved productivity and being able to see every action taking place on the network with ease.

“We value our long standing relationship with iDirect and their integration of TDMA and SCPC onto a single platform has become a true game changer for us,” said Lynn Salisbury-Zbierski, president of IsoTropic Networks, in a statement. “The ability to switch a customer to SCPC to support heavy traffic conditions while retaining the benefits of our shared platform provides for network-wide bandwidth efficiencies and increased profitability.”

Closing out the week, 6WIND, an organization known for powering data plane processing in software-defined networks, revealed it is now part of the Open Networking Foundation.

This organization is touted as a not-for-profit firm that brings together individuals interested in pushing networking to the next level by completely standardizing Software-Defined Networking (SDN).  In essence, this consortium was formed to overcome an array of barriers typically associated with SDN.

To keep up-to-date with all of the latest and greatest in the network packer broker space, be sure to stay glued to this community exclusively on TMCnet!

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