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By Gina Roos

VSS Monitoring has expanded its vBroker network-packet-broker (NPB) system to address networking issues—including network security and traffic growth—enterprises and mobile operators face. Many of these upgrades were driven by channel partners that increasingly see the need to deliver solutions that can handle big data and also enable greater visibility and operational performance for network monitoring and security tools.

The latest vProtector, vInspector and vBroker NPB product series helps organizations accelerate the deployment of next-generation security and performance solutions to protect against security threats. The vBroker 400 and 100 products also give companies the flexibility to choose the right selection of capabilities to meet their network needs, providing a modular platform for 1G, 10G and 40G network speeds.

One notable feature of the vProtector offering is that it allows customers to use both active in-line and passive monitoring tools. The vInspector “decrypts encrypted SSL [Secure Sockets Layer] traffic, providing clear context to both active and passive out-of-band monitoring and security tools,” according to the vendor.

“Many of these products answer requests that channel partners had about how products should be structured and how easy they should be to deploy, as well as the types of features that are needed to make monitoring easier,” said Gordon Beith, director of product management at VSS Monitoring.

The vBroker platform provides a full systems approach to performance and network security monitoring, delivering virtualized network access to physical security appliances and monitoring tools. The new products provide additional growth opportunities for VSS’ more than 200 global channel partners, as organizations are faced with increased network traffic and network security issues.

The system platform gives channel partners more flexibility. “We provide them with a mixed product set to put together a solution that meets most of their customer needs,” Beith said.”It’s about giving channel customers the flexibility to meet their current requirements, and room to scale due to changes in their network environment and changes in monitoring requirements in the future.”

For example, mobile operators deploying Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks see a significant increase in network traffic and complexity, and are faced with “gaining visibility into the massive amount of network traffic in a new architecture,” Beith said.

Global mobile data traffic grew 70 percent in 2012, reaching 885 petabytes per month at the end of 2012, up from 520 petabytes per month at the end of 2011, according to Cisco’s “Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast 2012.” The report also finds that mobile data traffic is expected to increase to 11.2 exabytes per month by 2017—a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent from 2012 to 2017.

“Because so much business is being conducted online, the cost of breaches is becoming very expensive,” said Leena Merciline, VSS senior product manager. “Governance and risk compliance regulations are driving organizations to put in solutions to protect sensitive data. Companies are now putting together budgets to deploy technical controls to check for malware.”

All vBroker platforms integrate and scale using VSS Monitoring’s vMesh technology. For example, if organizations need to monitor more or different types of traffic or check for new threats, it can be accomplished via plug-and-play within a product family and within the overall NPB system.

“Channel partners frequently serve as system integrators, in addition to fulfillment, so these new offerings will make their bids more effective and efficient,” said Peri Druker, VSS director of channel partners.

Gina Roos, a contributing writer for Channel Insider, specializes in technology and the channel.