Network Critical launches SmartNA-PortPlus, a Packet Broker for ultimate scalability

Network Critical announced SmartNA-PortPlus. This latest Packet Broker is a high density, high performance solution with up to 192 Ports covering 1/10/25/40/100G speeds. It enables organizations to tap into next-generation high speed networks whilst leveraging existing monitoring tool investments, thereby reducing capital expenditure.

Available in September 2018, this network visibility product creates the foundation for understanding what is happening on the network, especially when dealing with a myriad of tools, allowing organizations to better manage and improve the performance of their network.

SmartNA-PortPlus enables 100% visibility of network traffic. This means that huge volumes of network traffic can be aggregated, filtered and load balanced across multiple security and monitoring tools.

The sheer volume of data that organisations are trying to push through the network has swiftly increased in the last few years, as has demand for faster network speeds. That’s because organizations have witnessed a rapid evolution of business applications and systems as well as a shift toward more virtual and cloud computing at a time of ever-increasing threats to the network.

As a result, the network perimeter is fast disappearing as users become more mobile and organisations do more business in the cloud. Additionally, stringent government and industry regulations require stricter data center controls to ensure compliance.

In this environment the need to observe all traffic, prevent malicious activity and ensure a high performance network is critical. SmartNA-PortPlus helps to ‘bridge the gap’ in organisations who have differing network traffic speeds and whose security and monitoring tools have differing capabilities to receive traffic. Because the product can effectively handle traffic at 1/10G and 25G as well as 40G and 100G, and features an enormous 1.8 Tbps system throughput, it can act as the central hub to gather vast quantities of data and distribute it to the right tools.

“We enable organizations to send the right traffic to the right tools and to do this quickly and robustly. With our SmartNA-PortPlus we have extended the diversity of ports at a lower cost to provide ultimate scalability for our clients. This increase in ports means that the SmartNA-PortPlus™ product will disrupt the market because it delivers scalability, flexibility and affordability, enabling companies to future proof their network and scale at a pace and size that suits their needs,” said Alastair Hartrup, Global CEO of Network Critical.

Other key features include Network Critical’s patented Drag-n-Vu technology, which allows organizations to filter traffic based on IP addresses, protocols, ports and VLANs to provide improved network visibility. Drag-n-Vu also makes it easy to add complex filter rules and port mapping, virtually eliminating configuration time as well as costly mistakes.

““What’s really disruptive about the SmartNA-PortPlus is that we are now making 100G capabilities more broadly available to a much wider market. Previously this technology was only really suitable for those with sizable networks and deep pockets,” concluded Hartrup.