InteropNet Engineers on Gigamon Systems
“By utilising the Gigamon System in the early stages of the InteropNet build-out, we gave the engineering team a powerful tool to implement a filtered instrumentation system throughout the network by multiplexing the numerous data feeds into a variety of vendor tools. This filtering capability enables the tools to see only the data that is relevant to them and resolves all conflicts in gaining data access. This makes it easier for the engineering staff to diagnose issues if and when they occur. Gigamon has become an essential piece of the networking management and instrumentation puzzle.”
-- Glenn Evans, InteropNet Chief Engineer, CMP Technology (San Francisco, CA)
“The Gigamon product provides the InteropNet team with a unique opportunity to peel off key data feeds at critical points of the network without using up large pool of analysis tools. We can shape data streams by application type, like VoIP, video, web and other key attributes. This filtering capability allows us to focus on our specific areas of responsibility without being overwhelmed by the huge amount of data generated at the show. Gigamon’s ‘tool enhancer’ just makes sense in this new era of ever increasing Internet usage and security concern.”
-- Brian Chee, InteropNet Team Lead (VoIP and Video)
When not working on InteropNet, Brian is a full-time researcher at the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology and the Director of the Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL) of the University of Hawaii. In addition, Brian is a Senior Contributing Editor of the InfoWorld Magazine with ANCL playing host to some of InfoWorld’s big iron reviews.
Customer Profile - Interop is the premier biannual networking mega-event to showcase promising as well as state-of-the-art commercial technology (Las Vegas in the summer and New York in the fall). For more than twenty years, Interop has been the gathering-of-choice for network engineers and CIOs who travel from around the world to witness what works and what doesn't. Interop is unique from other tradeshows in that it is built around InternetNet which is touted as the world's largest temporary enterprise network, allowing vendors to battle test their best-of-breed equipment under live conditions and to demonstrate cross-vendor “interop”erability. In addition, InteropNet is also the triple redundant mission critical production network supporting hundreds of vendor booths and classrooms and wireless Internet access for as many as 25,000 attendees. Customized for each show, InteropNet is built from the ground up by a small team of volunteer engineers in collaboration with a handful of hand selected, innovative vendors who come together twice a year for 10 days to take on the ultimate networking challenge of their life.
Vendor Profile - Gigamon Systems is the provider of GigaVUE-MP, the next generation Data Access Switch that addresses connectivity issues related to monitoring business-critical, diverse and high bandwidth networks. By filtering, aggregating, and multicasting critical data to support multiple network monitoring tools, GigaVUE-MP significantly reduces capital and operating expenditures while improving network uptime by enabling far more flexible network access for security, monitoring, and troubleshooting with fewer and less intrusive tools.
At Interop Las Vegas of 2005, during its inaugural product launch, Gigamon was spotted and immediately handpicked by the InteropNet team to solve a recurring data access problem experienced throughout the show network and for every Interop event since 2005, has been invited back as a sponsor and designated as the data access technology provider supporting InteropNet.
Summary of Customer Pain - Engineers supporting InteropNet have to deploy a large array of diverse “out-of-band” monitoring tools to maintain security and performance. Moveover, troubleshooting has to be done simultaneously, remotely and immediately. Also, comprehensive coverage is demanded so that every physical link within the redundant network must be properly instrumented. In summary, similar to their “civilian” counterparts, InteropNet engineers encounter the “Perfect Storm” of data access problems typical of a large data center: “Too Few Engineers”, “Too Many Tools”, “Too Many Links”, and “Too Much Traffic”.
The solution is SpyNet.
InteropNet (left) is the mission critical show network consisting of redundant routers, firewalls and switches and a 10G optical ring that interconnects eight equipment racks distributed throughout the show floor. The Gigamon Data Access Switch is the corner stone of Interop SpyNet (right) which is the shadow monitoring network overlooking InteropNet and consisting of a large number of passive optical taps deployed throughout InteropNet including 1G taps and 10G taps. The Gigamon switch is used to cross-connect (any-to-any), aggregate (many-to-any), multicast (any-to-many) and otherwise customize (packet filtering) the aggregrated traffic for the large array of attached tools.
GigaTAP-SX modules (integrated with Gigamon's GigaVUE-MP Data Access Switch) are used to tap and access data from the multiple 1G optical links.
Network Critical 10G passive optical tap is used to tap and access the 10G single mode fiber ring, providing replica traffic to the 10G ports of the Gigamon switch, which uses multi-rule line-rate bit-mask filters to separate the bidirectional 10G traffic into multiple unidirectional 1G streams based on distinct IP subnets that correspond to the show floor racks (101, 102, etc.). This versatile 10G-to-1G Reverse Aggregator load-balancing scheme allows multiple 1G tools working in parallel to comprehensively monitor a 10G network.
Four simple icons describing the basic functionalities of the Gigamon Data Access switch while the following summaries the features and benefits of the Interop SpyNet Data Access Network.
| Problem | Solution | Feature | Benefit |
| Too Few Engineers | Any-to-Any | Can deploy any tool to any link at anytime without affecting the production network | Allow flexible and dynamic access, improve monitoring efficiency, effectiveness and network uptime, thereby enabling small number of engineers to monitor a large network |
| Too Many Tools | Any-to-Many | Can multicast traffic to support multiple tools with competing monitoring demands | Allow sharing of SPAN ports and taps and can customize 24/7 access for all tools all the time |
| Too Many Links | Many-to-Any | Can aggregate traffic from multiple taps to create a “big pipe” or “end-to-end” view | Allow deployment of fewer tools without sacrificing comprehensive network coverage, and enable consolidation of valuable tools in a centralized, secured ebvironment |
| Too Much Traffic | Packet Filtering | Can customize and map traffic flows to multiple tools and reduce traffic load on all tools | Allow optimization of bandwidth requirement and tool utilization, and sharing of 10G load across multiple 1G tools |
In summary, Interop SpyNet is a solution whose time has come and is an “out-of-band” Data Access Network (DAN) enabled by the Gigamon Data Access Switch. Interop SpyNet is a comprehensive monitoring network, allowing InteropNet engineers and SpyNet sponsors alike to access critical traffic both remotely and unobtrusively - before the firewalls, after the firewalls, to and from the command center (NOC) and its associate network management gears, and around the 10G ring. In addition, Interop SpyNet Showcase is a unqiue venue and a new tradition of Interop whereby state-of-the-art equipment from all major network monitoring analysis vendors can be racked together in a vendor-neutral location (outside of the NOC) and receive identical copies of show traffic, allowing individual sponsors to demonstrate live performance of their monitoring products at their own booths.
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