It is not enough to simply know that the tool is actively available to receive and pass traffic, but that it is also inspecting and blocking traffic. VSS' Protector offers unique positive, negative, and custom health-check packets. Positive health-check Packets test out the health and state of the hardware of the active monitoring appliance, ensuring that it is powered and linked. Negative health-check packets verify software state of the active tool, ensuring that it is blocking packets and protecting the live network. VSS extends health-check capabilities even further by also allowing users to configure customer health-checks for this and other purposes.
Health Check Triggers can be defined for:
- The period of time between sending Health Check packets
- The maximum time, after sending a Health Check packet, that it is expected to be returned in
- Whether the Health Check packet is expected to be returned or not
- The initial state of the Health Check trigger prior to sending/conducting the health check
- The number of attempts to receive expected return Health Check packet before the trigger is activated
- Which Bypass Monitor ports are selected to have the Health Check packet sent out
- The actual Health Check packet to be sent, which includes Destination MAC address, Ethernet packet type, and the packet's payload
- Which Bypass Monitor ports are selected to check for a returned packet
- Return packet filter to ensure only the packet being looked for is recognized
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