WESTFORD, Mass. -- NetScout Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT - News), today announced the availability of Sniffer® Global, the industry’s first enterprise-class software-based portable network analyzer solution for both wired and wireless networks, continuing forward with its execution and integration of its acquisition of Network General and its products and technologies.
Extending the industry’s most advanced and widely deployed Sniffer Portable network analyzer software, Sniffer Global is an enterprise-class portable network analyzer solution that brings much needed security, control, user activity reporting and enhanced manageability that raises the bar in portable software-based network analyzer technology. With deployment-proven, best-in-class functionality, rich expert modes and packet-level analysis capabilities and the industry’s widest range of protocol decodes, Sniffer Global delivers intuitive, easy-to-use dashboards and network views that include deep packet drill-down capabilities to aid field service personnel in the identification of localized network performance issues in real-time.
The portable protocol analyzer remains a widely used front-line tool that helps to improve real-time troubleshooting with localized provisional visibility for today’s modern IP network. However, the portable protocol analysis tools currently in use have evolved without much attention to the requirements for security, governance and control of how these tools are utilized. Although organizations have heavily invested in securing access to the network and its data to safeguard valuable information from hijack, theft or unauthorized access, the portable network analyzer has emerged as the overlooked security “black-hole” that essentially bypasses all established security mechanisms or policies without detection. Assuming a person can physically connect to the network, portable protocol analyzers have typically had full, uncontrolled access to network traffic traversing the wire – until now.
The NetScout Sniffer Global solution addresses this widely overlooked security risk by integrating the portable protocol analyzer into a policy-based, secure operating environment that is governed and controlled from a central authentication server. Combining desktop analysis software with a centralized control server and pre-defined policies, Sniffer Global controls what network data a portable analyzer user has access to, and how deeply they can access and analyze network traffic or data. Sniffer Global offers seamless user reporting that provides a comprehensive audit trail of all users’ activities – detailing who has accessed the network, what they have accessed and/or monitored, and what functions or analysis was performed on the data accessed – representing a truly unprecedented level of visibility into how the portable protocol analysis tool has been used.
“Since the early days of TCP/IP networks, the traditional ‘go to’ tool that network managers use to troubleshoot and resolve problems has always been the portable protocol analyzer,” said Debra Curtis, research vice president at Gartner, Inc. “However, the protocol analyzer’s ability to look into the payload of network packets may unwittingly expose an enterprise to security risks. With today’s emphasis on corporate compliance and audit oversight, customers are looking for ways to protect the integrity of their networks by monitoring, reporting and controlling access to potentially confidential network data.”
NetScout Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: NTCT)