Network packet brokers are key to protecting a company from an array of cyber attacks, serving as an important element to businesses throughout every industry. As more companies begin to realize the value behind NPBs, the space is continuing to rapidly grow.

This week, it was revealed that VSS Monitoring’s (News - Alert) network packet brokers drive the functionality of existing security tools to unparalleled levels, providing real-time, bi-directional insight into all SSL traffic taking place across network boundaries (LAN, WAN, or Cloud). According to the company’s recently released Network Packet Broker for Dummies book, “Network packet brokers (NPBs) enable your tools to perform optimally while providing unprecedented network visibility. Unlike their TAP predecessors, NPBs are sophisticated, high-end devices that provide traffic regeneration, aggregation, load balancing, packet de-duplication, and much, much more.”

The network packet broker will be hosting a complimentary webinar titled, “Blind as a Bat? Or Eagle Vision Into Encrypted Packets,” slated to take place on Monday, November 5 at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The not-to-miss event will feature SANS Security Analyst Dave Shackleford in addition to VSS Monitoring (News - Alert) Senior Director of Security Solutions Tony Zirnoon.

To register, click here.

In other news, Ciena Corp., a network specialist, has revealed that FiberLight (News - Alert), a provider of high-performance fiber optic networks, is currently using its network packet broker solutions in order to develop extremely scalable mobile backhaul networks for two major U.S. wireless operators.

“By deploying Ciena's packet networking infrastructure at the vast majority of towers we serve, we are enabling our customers to quickly scale from 100Mb/s to 1Gb/s per tower, eliminate bandwidth restrictions and reduce the potential for data bottlenecks,” said Andrew Stravelli, vice president for Network Engineering at FiberLight, in a statement.

While the detailed reporting features provided by Ciena's management solution allows the company to much more easily monitor and fix customers' networks if a problem should arise, the offering’s cloud-based portal also adheres to rigorous SLA requirements.

Closing out the week, Endace, a provider of intelligent network recording and visibility infrastructure, debuted its 100G Ethernet capable network visibility headend, coined the EndaceAccess 100.

With the ability to closely analyze and fix small problems before they become major issues within 100G networks, Endace’s EndaceAccess family of headend systems overcomes an array of obstacles associated with high speed network access by ingesting 40G or 100G traffic and load balancing traffic out over multiple 10Gbps port which allows 10 Gbps monitoring or security tools to be used in both 40G and 100G environments.

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!