Now that security and networking operations have become so complex, it’s not surprising that administrators are quick to blame the other party when things go wrong – and they always do.

It’s vital to build solutions into your network design that allows you to see every bit, byte and packet®, while addressing the real-world problems that IT departments face on a daily basis.



Learn how to see the true story and end the finger pointing.

Network v. Security: The Backstory

On the one side, smart networking techs are busy writing dynamic resource allocation policies to share network resources across all business critical applications (phone systems, accounting software, HR enrollment, email, etc.). While this approach does yield tremendous cost savings and agility benefits, it means that applications must continuously compete for resources and can suffer performance fluctuations when other applications and users consume too much of the network’s bandwidth.

At the same time, savvy security techs are using more sophisticated firewalls and in-line solutions to capture, analyze, isolate and restrict any traffic that shows signs of being malicious or out of policy. These solutions definitely offer more protection, however, every time a configuration or policy change is made, it can impact traffic flows and therefore change the performance of any application running on that network.

Both groups are doing the right thing within their scope, however, both are equally capable of disrupting normal traffic patterns if conditions change (which they always do). Regardless of which system is at fault, it’s the same problems for end users – disrupted conference calls, dropped Internet connections, software freezes, session timeouts, page load delays, etc.

Diagnosing root cause in such complex environments is difficult – especially when network and firewall dashboards all show green lights. It’s definitely easier to blame the other group and try to force their techs into dealing with more complex resolution work. It happens all the time, meanwhile end users keep complaining and the pressure mounts.

Network TAPs: The Ultimate Arbiter

When firewalls and security appliances are connected to the network via a bypass TAP, there is an easy way to find out where the problem lies. Bypass TAPs let security techs quickly switch firewalls and appliances from their in-line status to a passive, out-of-band status without having to stop receiving and analyzing network traffic for suspicious issues. Being able to take firewalls off-line for a few minutes will quickly show which system is responsible – problem solved!

And, network bypass TAPs help preempt the number of problems that can be caused by security systems in the first place by letting techs install and test updates without risking any impact on business-critical applications. They simply move the appliance out-of-band, validate the new configuration and reset it to work in-line. Network uptime is preserved and so are the company’s valuable assets.

As systems become more complex, it’s more important than ever to build solutions into your design plans that address the real-world problems that techs of both types face on a daily basis. A network TAP solves the finger pointing issue and so many more – why wouldn’t you want one?

To learn more about what your network is missing, download our free white paper: What Your Network's Missing - The Network TAP and Seven Ways to Leverage It.