Solving Visibility Challenges within Critical Infrastructure

Securing and monitoring your network is the ultimate goal. But OT teams face complex challenges when it comes to architecting connectivity throughout large and sometimes aging infrastructure that wasn’t initially designed with network security in mind. There are two options to access network packets for security and monitoring solutions to properly analyze threats and anomalies, as well as performances and regulatory conditions — network TAPs and SPAN ports.

SWITCH SPAN PORTS

A common visibility use case is to route mirrored traffic from a SPAN port on the switch to a security or monitoring tool. Port mirroring also known as SPAN (switched Port Analyzer), is a designated port on a network switch that is programmed to mirror, or send a copy, of network packets seen on a specific port (or an entire VLAN), where the packets can be analyzed.

NETWORK TAPs

The industry best practice for packet visibility are network TAPs (Test access points). Network TAPs are purpose-built hardware devices that create an exact copy of the network packet data, continuously 24/7 without compromising network integrity.