Deep-Packet Offerings Proliferate
Ellacoya Networks Inc. and Sandvine Inc. , two providers of carrier-class bandwidth and performance monitoring tools, both advanced their DPI offerings, which can be used to study client behavior down to the end user level. The two vendors joined Allot Ltd. (Nasdaq: ALLT), which demonstrated its newest DPI technology here earlier this week. (See Allot Goes Deep on Packets.)
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) and Ellacoya Networks, a leading provider of carrier-grade IP service control solutions, announced the availability of a joint solution for monitoring, managing, and controlling broadband IP networks. (See Agilent Integrates Ellacoya .) The solution combines Ellacoya's deep packet inspection (DPI) technology, which identifies and classifies service use and performance information at gigabit rates, with Agilent's deep packet analysis (DPA) technology, which monitors and manages key services, to optimize network planning, improve troubleshooting, and deliver service assurance to multi-service IP networks.
Combined, the deep-packet inspection and deep-packet analysis technologies could enable service provider customers to study end user behavior and identify malicious or risky activity in real time.
Read the rest of this story at Dark Reading.
— Light Reading staff
But here at the ILEC Gun Show, they've got magnums, hunting rifles, Uzis, and perhaps some Guns of Navarone on display. The guns aren't smoking yet, but they're advertising massive kill power. Down the way in DC, of course, they're merely talking about needing BB guns for target practice and, well, maybe some skeet shooting, but they'd never, ever need a really dangerous weapon.
It seems to me that DPI is basically wiretapping, and could be prosecuted as a crime, especially if the carriers do not offer a below-the-IP-layer neutral service (common carriage), which they will be discontinuing this year per 02-33. Any legitimate application, like making bandwidth or QoS available for applications, can be implemented within lower-layer headers.