Two years after NetScout acquired Arbor Networks, the two companies are bringing their technology together for the first time, integrating NetScout's real-time information platform, ISNG, into Arbor's advanced threat detection solution.

The move was technology driven, explains Arabella Hallawell, senior director of advanced threat product marketing for Arbor Networks , because it enables Arbor's advanced threat detection solution to use the real-time data generated by NetScout Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: NTCT)'s ISNG performance management platform, speeding up the investigation and detection of advanced threats. (See NetScout, Arbor Team on Security Data.)

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Arbor has been making significant investment in its advanced threat products, alongside similar work on the DDoS mitigation side, and this is one more advancement in the product line, she comments.

"If you look at the big challenge for both organizations trying to deploy any kind of threat analytics, it's getting access to data," Hallawell says. "How do you make sure you have access to not just packet data but applications and protocol data?"

NetScout's InfiniStream platform does deep packet capture and analysis that addresses the performance of applications across voice, data and video services. "It seemed like a natural technology advantage to use that within our solution," she adds. "It is basically having best in class wire data to help power the threat analytics."

Network and security teams will have access to real-time and historical data on a dashboard that will enable them to more quickly identify threats and deal with them, she says. The integration ties together NetScout's Adaptive Service Intelligence technology for intranet traffic visibility and Arbor's Networks Active Threat Level Analysis System (ATLAS) view of Internet traffic to create a view of the data on which companies can more confidently act, she says.

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Hallawell doesn't rule out Arbor partnerships with companies other than its corporate parent, noting that network operators and enterprises alike will want Arbor's security system to use whatever performance management technology they are already using.

The two companies will be jointly selling the integrated products.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading