Keysight's Ixia Fabric Controller (IFC) Clustering

Improving Visibility Efficiency and Design Flexibility for Distributed Packet Brokers

With today’s complex network infrastructure, the needs for visibility and security monitoring could change dramatically from customer to customer. Some require security tools being centralized, while others require security tools being placed in various locations in a distributed environment for operating efficiency and maximum design flexibility.

In a distributed environment, Single Pane of Glass management for all network packet brokers is essential for ease of use. Operation and management for a cluster of NPBs should be as easy as a single one. Keysight’s IFC Clustering solution offers such an example.

Keysight’s Ixia Fabric Controller Node

IFC Controller Node works like an SDN controller for visibility packet brokers. The controller node in an IFC cluster creates and maintains global configuration database for all nodes in the cluster. Multiple controller nodes are possible in an IFC cluster, offering configuration redundancy and resiliency. IFC clustering is based on distributed architectures that allow network administrators access to traffic sent to monitoring and diagnostic tools anyway in the visibility network, singleor-multi hops away.

Highlights

• Keysight’s Ixia Fabric Controller Clustering provides a single ‘pane of glass’ configuration, management and operation for a cluster of Keysight network packet brokers in any-to- any, single hop or multi hop topology

• Leverages Keysight’s patented filter compiler to seamlessly resolve filter overlaps even in a distributed environment

• Transparent interconnects, in direct connect or over GRE tunnel, make it seamless to forward tapped data from multiple remote locations to centralized tool farm

• Tight integration with IFC Centralized Manager for rich NMS functions, topology visualization, and single sign- on

• Comprehensive statistics along each hop and colorful indicator for congestion and link health help reduce troubleshooting time in large scale deployments

Single Pane of Glass (SPoG) for Configuration, Management and Operation

All ports and nodes in a IFC cluster can be configured and managed from one user interface (UI). Cluster topology displays how nodes are connected, what the interconnect links are, and how much bandwidth is allocated. Colorful indicator indicates if links are normal, or dropping packets, or simply down and unusable. Keysight's visibility intelligence capabilities—NetStack, PacketStack, SecureStack, and AppStack—resources can also be used across the fabric. This makes it easy to operate across multiple sites, providing the centralized control required of complex visibility infrastructure.

FLEXIBLE ANY-TO-ANY TOPOLOGY SUPPORT

Customers deploying monitoring solutions today continue to face challenges. For example, how to get the distributed packet brokers working together cost effectively? Imagine you have 2-3 remote offices and you want flexibility in connecting them because of connectivity costs. Keysight’s IFC clustering architecture allows to connect the packet brokers in various topologies, thus allowing you to select the deployment that makes the best business sense. It also allows you to get an unprecedented level of resiliency—with multiple controller nodes configured, a copy of the configuration maintained on all controller nodes. Thus, if some fail, the remaining good controller nodes are still accessible and continue to function as designed.