What Is a Network Packet Broker (AND WHY DO YOU NEED ONE)?

Keeping networks safe and users thriving amid the relentless flux requires a host of sophisticated tools performing real-time analysis. Your monitoring infrastructure might feature network and application performance monitors, data recorders, and traditional network analyzers. Your defenses might leverage firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), data loss prevention (DLP), anti-malware, and other point solutions.

However specialized security and monitoring tools may be, they all have two things in common:

• They need to know exactly what is happening in the network
• Their output is only as good as the data they receive