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    The most important thing you could add to your network...

    Niagara's advanced Network Packet Brokers (NPB) provide network data access to NetOps and SecOps for real-time threat detection, investigation, and response. Our NPB solutions are strengthened by a robust Technology Alliance Program with top-tier technology leaders and deployed in the most prestigious networks worldwide.

    What Exactly Does a Network Packet Broker Do

    Niagara’s NPB advanced  solutions perform a range of crucial functionalities for all types of networks, even those with extremely complex architectures and that are resource-intensive including:

    • Complete Network Visibility - Unveiling the presence of familiar, suspicious, and enigmatic traffic traversing through both physical and virtual networks.
    • Network robustness - Guaranteeing the prevention of data loss and implementing advanced filtering techniques, along with providing high availability, stripping, and other specialized packet capabilities. This includes intricate Regular Expression (REGEX) filtering and headers stripping for filtered traffic, which can be processed and analyzed by inspection tools.
    • Network management goes beyond just monitoring network traffic. It entails understanding the intricacies of each type of traffic and knowing exactly how to handle them. This includes efficiently routing authorized data types and effectively dealing with suspicious and unknown traffic. By simplifying APM and NPM analytics and reporting, network management becomes seamless and streamlined.
    • Enhanced network security - streamline the analysis of security and detect advanced threats while ensuring effective prevention.

    The Importance of Having a Network Packet Broker

    As data analyzers, Niagara's Packet Brokers also excel in eliminating redundant packets, known as deduplication, before they reach analysis or security tools within the network. This is particularly beneficial when multiple TAPs or SPAN ports forward their data traffic, as the NPBs efficiently remove these duplicates. By doing so, they ensure that network tools can focus on valuable data, saving resources and optimizing performance.

    The basic schema for manipulating data packets includes a variety of configurations. These include one network link connected to one tool (one-to-one), one network link connected to multiple tools (one-to-many), multiple network links connected to one tool (many-to-one), and multiple network links connected to multiple tools (many-to-many). These configurations are seamlessly integrated and load balanced throughout the entire network, creating a cohesive and efficient system.

    360 visibility - advanced Network Packet Broker architecture diagram

    The Broad Family of Network Packet Brokers that Sets the Standard for (NetOps and SecOps) Agility

    With a wide array of Network Packet Brokers tailored to various use cases and application scenarios, Niagara Networks empowers NetSecOps by offering five major advantages:

     

    1. Resolves complex network architecture and establishes a seamless flow of network traffic to enhance the performance of monitoring and
         security tools.

    2. Ultra-high granular view of packet flows from any TAP use case including Niagara's CloudRay virtual TAP and Cloud Intelligence Platform 
         solution.

     

    3. Simplify Application and Network Performance (APM / NPM) analytics and reporting. 

     

    4. Enhance your security analytics with streamlined efficiency, advanced threat inspection, and prevention capabilities.

     

    5. Boost tool performance and scalability - maximize traffic capacity while minimizing redundant and irrelevant headers and payload.




                                 Empower NetOps and SecOps with The Right Traffic to The Right Tool - Across ANY Network

     

    NPB Any Network

     

    As part of the advanced packet broker offering powered by the Packetron acceleration module, Niagara Networks' unique Open Visibility solution can host any third-party virtual tools on a single appliance, leveraging hardware-accelerated traffic processing for enhanced performance. This includes advanced IPv4 and IPv6 packet parsing and manipulation from OSI Layer 2 up to Layer 7, with functions such as header and payload slicing, data masking, application filtering, NetFlow/IPFIX metadata generation, tunnel termination (ERSPAN, GRE, NVGRE, VXLAN, GENEVE, etc.), selective TLS decryption, mobile visibility, deduplication, packet replication, and regular expression filtering to support sophisticated packet conditioning use cases.

     

    Advanced Network Packet Brokers' Product Matrix Comparison Table

     

      1/10G 25G 40G 100G NPB

    Packetron

    Advanced Packet Processing 

    Bypass TAP
    Hybrid Packet Brokers
    3808E  
    3299        
    Fixed Packet Brokers
    4540    
    4248-6C    
    4224E / 4216E          
    Cloud Intelligence Platform - Virtual Packet Broker 
    CIP

     

       

     

     

     

     

    Packet Brokers for any Use Case

    Niagara offers 3 types of Network Packet Brokers:

    Fixed NPB

    High-Performance Visibility for on-prem & Data Center Networks

    Niagara’s Fixed Network Packet Brokers deliver uncompromising performance for high-throughput, mission-critical environments. Built on a non-blocking architecture, they provide deterministic traffic delivery, deep packet control, and carrier-grade reliability for on-prem and data center networks.

    Cloud Broker

    Cloud-Native Visibility Across Hybrid & Multi-Cloud Environments

    Niagara’s Cloud Packet Broker, powered by the Cloud Intelligence Platform (CIP), brings packet level visibility into cloud-native and virtualized networks - where traditional hardware cannot operate. Designed for dynamic, ephemeral workloads, CIP enables centralized traffic processing and intelligent metadata extraction across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.

    Hybrid  Bypass


    Inline Security, High Availability & Unified Visibility

     

    Niagara’s Hybrid Packet Broker & Bypass platforms combine inline bypass switching, TAP functionality, and packet brokering in a single, carrier-grade system - ensuring continuous traffic flow even during tool or power failures.
    This architecture enables inline security inspection without compromising network uptime or operational resilience.