Introduces Protector Series
Load Balancer for Inline Network Security Tools, and ObjectFinder
Real-Time Deep Packet Inspection Platform

BURLINGAME, Calif.–Monday, March 1, 2010–VSS Monitoring, Inc. today introduced Protector Series?, a session-aware load balancer and speed converter for inline network security tools such as intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) and Web filter devices, and ObjectFinder?, a specialized real-time deep packet inspection (DPI) and filtering platform for network surveillance.

The Protector Series is a family of policy driven speed converters and load balancers acting to optimize and protect inline security infrastructures such as IPSs and Web filter devices. Protector Series extends the capability of any organization's IPS infrastructure by allowing multiple one Gigabit IPSs to be deployed on a 10 GigE link, streaming the inspected traffic back into the network at 10 GigE. Protector uses session-aware load balancing to maintain packet order integrity throughout.

In addition, in event of a security device failure, Protector will, depending on user defined policy, stream traffic to one or more back-up devices, or route traffic around the IPS, or close the link to ensure that traffic does not continue uninspected.

ObjectFinder provides precise, "needle-in-a-haystack" filtering for network security devices such as IPSs, network behavior analysis tools and flight recorders capturing data for forensics purposes. It can identify IM and email addresses within any type of TCP/IP packets on Ethernet networks in real time. Upon detection of a target address, ObjectFinder locks on to the user's session from point of initiation and streams a copy of it to a network analyzer, security tool, storage device or other monitoring tool, ending the stream once the session is closed.

"With today's highly distributed, high-speed environments under increasing threat, network and security monitoring must not only be everywhere the data is, but they must provide actionable data in real time," said Terence M. Breslin, VSS Monitoring CEO. "The Information Assurance Suite greatly extends the capability of IPS and related devices, protecting their function and giving network administrators granular real-time visibility into traffic at speeds up to 10 GigE across multiple segments. Our Distributed Traffic Capture Systems? are known for making monitoring tools work much more effectively. Today we bring that capability to the security infrastructure, giving it a level of end-to-end visibility never before possible."

Protector's load balancing feature maintains session consistency for traffic sent to each security tool. In event of a link failure to the primary security device, session-aware load balancing ensures that the traffic is redistributed evenly across the remaining links in the group, or, if desired, sent to one or more redundant devices. In addition to protecting inline devices, Protector also simultaneously supports passive analysis tools for out-of-band monitoring.

ObjectFinder is capable of real-time searching of up to 64,000 unique addresses per packet and capture of more than 64,000 unique streams or sessions. The ObjectFinder's output ports are load balanced, ensuring packet order integrity to the monitoring tool.

Protector Series devices are available with up to 24 ports. ObjectFinder is available in configurations of 18 to 28 ports. Both support speeds from Gigabit to 10 GigE and copper as well as fiber media. Each includes a graphical user interface and can be managed remotely as well as locally, either as a standalone unit or integrated into a VSS Monitoring Distributed Traffic Capture System?.

VSS Monitoring, Inc. is the leader in network traffic capture, with the world's largest family and most feature-rich traffic capture devices allowing IT professionals to see into the farthest reaches of even the largest networks, preventing problems from reaching end users, and greatly reducing the time to achieve a return on investment for network monitoring and security tools. VSS's innovative Distributed Traffic Capture Systems herald a new architecture of network monitoring, one which fundamentally improves its capability and price-performance. The company is headquartered in Burlingame, Calif.