The 16x8 Distributed Tap has 16 UTP ports (or Fiber LC) and 8 SFP ports. Any port can be designated an input port or monitor port*. In the case of the copper version (UTP) the inputs can be user-configured as either inline or SPAN. With the fiber versions, the inputs are factory configured as either inline or SPAN. The Fiber SPAN version is all I/O, while the Fiber Inline version is fixed (16 network and 8 monitor ports) and is completely passive.
This device can be locally managed via a serial console and remotely managed via Telnet, HTTP, HTTPS, SNMPv3. A filter option enables users to select, at the packet level, what traffic is forwarded to the designated monitor ports.
Hardware-Based Filtering allows traffic to be distinguished according to source and destination MAC/IP address as well as by specific protocols, such as HTTP, VoIP, and others. A custom filter offers more granular specification of a filter, specifically within the payload of a packet.
Session-Aware Load Balancing
increases user control of traffic distribution
to monitoring tools, increasing output capacity while maintaining session integrity. For example, a 10 GigE network can be captured and automatically balanced across multiple Gigabit monitor tools based on
user-defined session criteria. Session-Aware Load Balancing can operate in tandem with Hardware-Based Filtering or independently.
The v16.8 Distributed Tap also support VSS’ proprietary intelligent stacking technology,
vStack+™
which enables traffic capture devices to be deployed in a redundant, low-latency mesh for total, dynamic, fault-tolerant visibility.
For Gigabit copper ethernet networks,
vAssure™ reduces normal failover time (300ms-3s) to 50-150ms, which registers as merely noise on the wire, resulting in no link loss or spanning tree reconfiguration. Without vAssure, the convergence time can be several minutes long. A minor outage of a single link can cause a major outage.
LinkSafe™ feature enables copper link failures to be observed by network elements on both sides of the Tap, thereby enabling routers and switches to execute redundancy whenever such failures occur.
Redundant power supplies allow seamless transitions between power systems and ensure uptime. All VSS managed devices support field firmware updates for additional features and performance enhancements.
