ONPATH Announces New Packet Blade, Creating the Industry's Most Scalable Network Monitoring Access Solution

MARLTON, N.J., May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ONPATH Technologies, the leader in scalable connectivity and monitoring solutions for high performance networks, today announced its new Layer 2-4 Packet Blade offering for its UCS 3900 product family. The modular P-Blade delivers up to 48 front-facing ports of packet flow switching in a single blade. Its flexible per-port licensing model and ability to mix with existing Layer 1 blades provides customers with a flexible and cost-effective way to scale their port count as needed, without requiring large up-front capital investments. The 3900 switch family provides P-Blade based solutions ranging from 16 ports to 576 non-blocking ports of 1/10 Gbps or up to 48 ports of 40Gbps non-blocking ports, providing the ultimate in scalability and investment protection.

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ONPATH's new P-Blade serves as a Network Packet Broker (NPB) by filtering and aggregating packets, improving access and utilization of monitoring and security tools. In research published by Gartner, Inc. in an April 2012 report, "Vendor Landscape for Application-Aware Network Performance Monitoring and Network Packet Brokers", by Jonah Kowall and Debra Curtis, Gartner key findings include, "The use of network packet brokers (NPBs) allows better visibility into and longevity of tool investments spanning network performance monitoring (NPM), application performance monitoring (APM), security, network forensics and other monitoring technologies that require packet data." ONPATH is responding to this market need by delivering the P-Blade, a flexible, scalable Network Packet Broker blade that improves network and application performance monitoring, network security and forensic recording.

ONPATH's new Packet Blade provides filtering, aggregation, and load balancing, as well as the industry's lowest latency, in the most scalable Layer 1-4 platform available. The P-Blade offers the following advanced features:

• Layer 2-4 Packet Filtering – Minimizes traffic sent through network to tools to optimize processing performance and better utilize existing tools
• Packet Aggregation – Reduces the number of links and ports required to pass traffic to monitoring solutions and better utilize tool resources
• TAP/Multicast – Flexibly monitors and multicasts any 1, 10, or 40 Gbps stream to any 1, 10, or 40 Gbps tool, helping with typical challenges of limited SPAN and TAP ports
• Load Balancing – Optimizes tool processing performance and extends the life of existing 1 or 10 Gbps tools by distributing packet flows effectively
• Packet Slicing – Reduces amount of traffic passed to network recording and protocol analysis tools, boosting their efficiency
• Source ID Tagging – Identifies the source port traffic under analysis, accelerating root cause analysis

The P-Blade delivers the industry's highest intelligence and flexibility, while ensuring resilient, guaranteed connectivity.  Designed to operate in the same physical UCS 3900 chassis as the company's Layer 1 switching blades, including the S-Blade, G-Blade, and all-optical O-Blades, the P-Blade makes the UCS 3900 the most scalable Layer 1-4 platform on the planet.  

The Packet Blade can be managed locally or remotely through ONPATH's HorizON management software in the newest 3.0 Release. The HorizON platform provides centralized control of the UCS system, enabling network managers to automate connectivity and packet flows across their data center or enterprise, dramatically improving productivity.  All of the drag-and-drop, point-and-click, and table-driven GUI connection management and monitoring features are supported across all of the 3900 chassis and blade families, enabling seamless management and simple user interface. 

"The new Packet Blade provides an exciting new addition to the ONPATH solution offering for network monitoring access," stated Gene Litt, VP Marketing at ONPATH.  "Combined with our existing blade technology, we can now offer customers features across Layers 1-4 while scaling up to 576 ports per system, or thousands of ports across a network, to help future proof their investments."

The UCS 3900 is a family of scalable physical layer and packet flow switching systems for high-performance connectivity and monitoring applications – offering the most scalable, flexible and future-proof platform on the market. The platform supports port speeds from 10 Mbps to over 100 Gbps, and can scale from 16 to up to 576 non-blocking ports or thousands of meshed ports.  HorizON, ONPATH's software solution, coupled with the company's UCS product line, adds the highest levels of network intelligence, user simplicity, and system security. Together, the solution is the industry's leading platform for Network Monitoring Access, Test Automation, Cyber Security, and Cloud Networking applications.

About ONPATH
ONPATH Technologies is the leading provider of scalable connectivity and monitoring solutions for high-performance networks. ONPATH's Universal Connectivity System and HorizON Software deliver an advanced platform that automates and secures data center and test infrastructure to help network managers conserve time, increase utilization, and save money compared to manual patching, static TAPs, SPAN ports, or complex mesh switching architectures. ONPATH currently has over one million installed ports throughout Fortune 1,000 and Government customers. For more information, visit www.onpathtech.com.

SOURCE ONPATH Technologies