For more press information contact: Abigail Johnson/Paul Michelson Roeder-Johnson Corporation (650) 802-1850 http://email.roeder-johnson.com |
For more customer information contact: cPacket Networks Mountain View, CA +1 (650) 969-9500 FAX: +1 (650) 969-4900 info@cpacket.com |
CPACKET TECHNOLOGY
PROTECTS SHOW-FLOOR NETWORK AT INTEROP FOR THIRD TIME
Reference Hardware that Showcases cPacket’s 20
Gig “Complete Packet Inspection” Chips Insulates Trade Show Good Guys from the
Bad Guys – and Each Other
MOUNTAIN VIEW,
CA OCTOBER 17, 2007 – cPacket Networks today announced that its complete
packet inspection technology will be used for the third Interop conference in a
row to protect show participants and organizers from malicious or unintended
disruptions in the show network. The company will install in-line monitoring probes
at 16 links in the network operating center of Interop.
Each probe is
capable of inspecting both the headers and payload (data) of all traffic
flowing through a link, down to the bit level, and offers the operator a
variety of responses to non-conforming traffic. The probes themselves are
reference designs for cPacket's unique “complete packet inspection” chips,
which the company markets to network equipment original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs).The widely-attended show is being held in New York City from October 22nd
through 26th.
“We have a number of stringent
requirements for a tradeshow network,” said Mike Pennacchi, InteropNet Lead
Network Engineer. “We need to install the network virtually overnight, ensure
that it is up constantly, and protect it both from attacks, and from
applications simply 'gone wild.' cPacket has proven invaluable in making this happen.”
The Interop network serves exhibitors, presenters, attendees, registration,
classrooms, and the press, among others.
cPacket first
demonstrated its technology at the New York Interop in late 2006, with four demonstration
prototypes. The 16 units being provided this time reflects the desire of the
show’s network administrators to have much greater situational awareness. The
show, which attracts top industry professionals, is considered a particularly
inviting and “target rich” environment for network disruption and attacks, as
its network addresses and the show timing are well known in advance, to the
hackers of the world.
According to
Pennacchi, cPacket’s probes meet three very important needs in the monitoring
and troubleshooting of the “InteropNet.” “We are able to monitor the traffic,
capture suspicious packets, and drop those that have no business being on our
network,” he said. The design of the probes allows them to literally be dropped
anywhere in the network to provide visibility and enforcement down to every bit
in every packet flowing through that link. Added Glenn Evans, Interop Lead
Engineer, 2004-2007, about the technology: “The situational awareness,
responsiveness, control, and security that it provides us on behalf of our
network and users has far surpassed my expectations.”
Complete packet
inspection is cPacket’s term for a process where 100% of the information
flowing through a network link is inspected and analyzed in real time, even on
networks running at 20 gigabits per second. Conforming data is allowed to pass,
while non-conforming data can be redirected, dropped, or rate-limited. It is
called “complete” because it analyzes both the protocol header fields and
payload content and is able to take action on specific traffic profiles with
surgical precision.
cPacket has
developed an economical chip that performs this complete packet inspection, at
wire speeds up to 20 gigabits per second. The new silicon technology results in
a 10-to-1 improvement in packet processing speeds, at about one-tenth the
costs. The resulting 100-to-1 improvement in cost-performance permits
situational awareness and rapid response to be integrated pervasively into the
network infrastructure, down to the port level, without introducing the
complexity, cost, or performance bottlenecks that characterize current
technologies.
The 16 demonstration
systems installed in the Interop network operating center are reference designs
built by cPacket to showcase their chip, and the units are fully-functioning
network “visibility and enforcement” appliances. The small devices provide
reports that are consolidated in a management console, and can be accessed
remotely from a Web browser, providing an extremely easy-to-use and intuitive
interface.
According to
cPacket founder and CEO Rony Kay, the simplicity and high performance of the
chip will enable system designers to add complete packet inspection
economically to existing or future designs of network switches, monitoring
probes, and security appliances. “Situational awareness and control of network
traffic is increasingly required pervasively throughout the network,
particularly at the ‘local’ level of the access and aggregation layers,” said
Kay. “Now, for the first time, this is both economically and technically
feasible, and strategically compelling, as the Interop demonstration shows.”
About cPacket
cPacket Networks
is an emerging leader in chips and technologies that offers breakthrough, “complete”
packet inspection, at a fraction of the complexity, power, or cost of preexisting
approaches. It provides manufacturers of routers, switches and other network
appliances a low-impact means to easily drop game-changing, wire-speed active
network traffic analysis and response directly into their existing or planned
designs – whether targeted at the service providers, the enterprise, or the
small office. The exploding use of networks for media-centric applications
makes the availability of truly pervasive deep packet inspection timely and
crucial.
cPacket was
founded in 2003 and is located in Mountain View, CA. For more information,
visit www.cpacket.com.
Editors, note:
All trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective
companies.
Keywords: “complete packet
inspection”; “deep packet inspection”; “network security”; “network monitor”; “network
probe”; “network protection”; “situational awareness”; “traffic analysis”; “wire
speed”; “chip”.
Additional background information is
available at www.roeder-johnson.com.
See also: “cPacket Executive Says Network Security Falls Far Short; Requires
Pervasive, Multi-tiered Approach With a Local Focus”, September 19, 2007, http://www.roeder-johnson.com/RJDocs/CPclasschip0919.html
