Out Of Band Tools:
Always-on network management
Focal Point: Out of Band Tools
Out of band network tools rely on a support network that is separate from the production network and is used strictly for network management. This arrangement offloads maintenance traffic from the production network and ensures that IT engineers can access network components—even when the main network is down or congested.
TorreyPoint’s Out of Band Tools offer:
- Reliable access to routers, switches, and other network components
- Traffic monitoring
- Network alerts
- Lawful intercepts
- Data trending, analysis, and reporting
The benefits of the TorreyPoint solution include:
- Separate network management traffic from production traffic
- Helps IT staff fine-tune network components for peak performance
- Allows support staff to diagnose and remediate problems at remote offices, eliminating the need for site visits
TorreyPoint’s Out of Band Tools solution is ideal for enterprises with large numbers of points of presence, widespread global operations, and business-critical operations.
The network can’t be managed as a black box anymore.
Every enterprise IT group relies on network management tools to monitor and maintain routers, switches, and other components of the network. Often those tools communicate over the production network. This approach is adequate for normal operations, but has a built-in drawback: if the production network slows down or crashes, the IT staff has no remote access to the network devices.
Out of band tools rely on a dedicated network that is separate from the production network, providing access to devices no matter what the state of the production network. Imagine these scenarios in your business:
- An employee in a remote office plugged an MP3 player into her desktop computer, accidentally infecting it with malware. The infection spreads until more than half of the company’s computers are controlled by a botnet. The network slows down dramatically. The IT group uses out-of-band tools to isolate the infected systems and remediate the infection.
- The new order entry application on the corporate Web site consumes five times more bandwidth than the developer expected. The reason? A bug in the database code issues each query five times instead of once. The network manager accesses the web servers using out-of-band tools, locates the problem, and passes the information to the application developers for resolution
The IT group that has visibility into its network has the power to deliver the security, performance, and reliability that modern enterprises need for success.
TorreyPoint’s Out of Band Tools solution gives network managers, security managers, and application developers reliable access to the network at any time. It uses a dedicated out-of-band support network so that IT staff always has access to information, even when the main network is down or overloaded.
The TorreyPoint solution provides a clear view of network operations.
The TorreyPoint Out of Band Tools provide answers to the toughest questions about the network. This solution is ideal for enterprises, government organizations, and service providers: the more points of presence (PoPs) and the more widespread the network, the more benefits it offers. With TorreyPoint, IT managers can count on access when they need it most.
TorreyPoint’s Out of Band Tools:
- Provide access to network components when the production network is down or congested
- Monitor traffic on the network at all key points
- Analyze and alert IT staff to anomalous events even when the network is down
- Allow security staff to do lawful intercepts when required to
- Provide data trending, analysis and reporting
TorreyPoint works with the IT staff to understand the network topology and to design a custom monitoring system to illuminate, monitor, and archive network traffic. TorreyPoint’s Professional Services staff can even help decode some of the thornier issues and get the network running at peak efficiency.
Out of Band Tools help Developers and others do their jobs more effectively
Application developers, security officers, and network managers must have detailed information about the network at all times if they are expected to make informed decisions, respond proactively to potential harmful situations, and optimize network operations and applications. The TorreyPoint solution shows them and others exactly what is happening throughout the entire network, all the time—even when the production traffic path is down or nonfunctioning.
The information from TorreyPoint’s Out of Band Tools informs decisions about security issues, business practice and policy compliance. It helps IT staff fine-tune network applications for peak performance and alerts security managers to issues and anomalies before they become major security problems. For locations with no IT staff, network managers can rely on the TorreyPoint solution to diagnose and remediate network problems at the remote sites—without dispatching a technician to the site.
Beyond these tactical uses, the information collected by the TorreyPoint Out of Band Tools has strategic value. The data can be interfaced directly into business intelligence applications, security monitoring tools, and network management systems (NMS) to take full advantage of their analysis capabilities.
Network management tools that rely on the production network limit the effectiveness of network managers, particularly when the network is suffering from poor performance. TorreyPoint Out of Band Tools provide access to components in the network no matter what happens in the production network.
