The Pipeline

Just like peaches and cream
Network operations and security should naturally fit together, but the two usually are not unified.

That’s why Lancope developed StealthWatch System 5.5, a Network Behavior Analysis product that is the first flow-based solution to unify the two.

“The whole goal of this convergence is to streamline the security and network operations process, reduce the amount of time and resources spent collaborating between the two to diagnose and remediate problems, and to be able to eliminate some of these stand-alone systems that can’t be integrated,” said Tim McCormick, vice president of marketing at Lancope.

The system offers one-stop shopping for network planners, security architects and network operations employees who need to check for usage anomalies, plan for the network’s capacity, analyze traffic and conduct other tasks.

An important new component, the IDentity-1000 appliance, can link network traffic and host behavior to users.

With a click of the mouse, administrators can discover which user is logged in to a particular network node, or they can enter a log-in ID to view network activity associated with a specific user.

“It’s very powerful to be able to pinpoint exactly who is doing something on the network, such as downloading music or logging in to something they’re not supposed to,” McCormick said. This release also includes new reporting capabilities for network performance and optimization. The reports were designed for enterprise-class networks, and they use NetFlow and sFlow data formats from router and switch makers such as Cisco Systems, Foundry Networks, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Hewlett-Packard.

Wi-Fi on steroids
Forget about pumping up the volume. It’s time to pump up the Wi-Fi with Kiyon’s new wireless software upgrade to the company’s Kiyon Autonomic Network software.

The software turns wireless access points, routers, switches and client devices such as cellular phones into high-performance, multichannel wireless solutions. At the same time, it eliminates interference from other Wi-Fi or radio devices.

The technology increases the capacity, Internet throughput and quality of service for 802.11 Wi-Fi and ultra-wideband systems that normally use a single radio frequency channel on a single radio. Conventional Wi-Fi networks face hurdles partly because the network infrastructure can’t prioritize packet flow properly, reducing the quality of service for broadband applications such as voice over IP and high-definition video.

In addition, it achieves this without any hardware changes.

“We’re not modifying the radios at all, it’s just a software platform,” said Michael Nova, founder and chief executive officer of Kiyon. “We just give customers a lot better performance.”

Although the need for such capacity might not be urgent yet, it will certainly become relevant when multiservice network applications converge, and users will need better reliability and more bandwidth.