The VS-104 Packet Broker can be connected to Tap or SPAN ports to provide enhanced monitoring capability. The VS-104 make copies of the data created by Tap or SPAN ports, and provides the packet copy to one or multiple tools for application, security or recording purposes.

1 IN 3 OUT Mode

In this mode, the VS-104 can replicate traffic from a single Tap or SPAN port so that up to 3 monitoring tools have access to the copy of traffic.

In addition to being able to replicate traffic to multiple tools, this mode also provides the capability of sharing identical copies of traffic with multiple departments. This can eliminate SPAN port contention and allow each department access to a wider variety of data.

3 IN 1 OUT Mode

In this mode, the VS-104 can aggregate traffic from multiple SPAN ports or Taps for monitoring through a single tool. This option is preferred when a monitoring tool needs access to traffic from multiple points in the network, but only has a single port from which to recieve traffic on.

Many network analysis or security tools are capable of monitoring traffic from many different points in the network at once. These tools however, only have a limited number of network interface cards and can only receive traffic from as many sources as they have ports.

Aggregation allows traffic to be combined from multiple sources including tap outputs, SPAN ports, or mirror ports. By combining the traffic originating from different sources into a single link, a single tool can be leveraged to provide security or analysis to a larger part of the network.