An old IT proverb states, ‘If ain’t broke, don’t fix it’; if a system continues to deliver the results you want, there is no need to replace it. But at a time when cybersecurity threats evolve exponentially, traditional network monitoring solutions are probably not delivering all the benefits and functionality you need to be properly protected.
So why should you consider replacing your traditional network monitoring solution with the next-gen capabilities of FastNetMon?
Detection speed
The longer a DDoS attack lasts, the greater the overall cost to the victim. Fast detection and mitigation is therefore essential to limiting the potential damage caused by an attack.
Traditional network monitoring solutions have two drawbacks. First, they must compare incoming traffic against their internal blacklists. When a suspicious event is detected, they must then propagate that finding across other systems to maintain network-wide protections.
FastNetMon uses intelligent traffic analysis to identify suspicious activity, regardless of source. This analysis is far faster than blacklist comparisons, allowing the mitigation process to be started and finished earlier. And because analysis takes place in the FastNetMon engine rather than on the network infrastructure, there is no network performance overhead to worry about either.
Intelligent detection
Unlike some traditional solutions that require traffic sampling and analysis, FastNetMon performs all monitoring on live traffic in real time. Importantly, it is capable of analysing a range of telemetry protocols including NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow, and SPAN/port mirror.
Real time monitoring reduces DDoS attack detection time to just two seconds when dealing with sFlow and SPAN/Mirror mode – and thirty seconds when working with Netflow 5/9 and IPFIX. This is considerably faster than traditional technologies.
Cloud-ready network traffic analysis
Cloud systems are not impervious to DDoS attacks – and most traditional tools do not offer the required functionality to protect PaaS and SaaS properties. On the other hand, FastNetMon can import and analyse popular traffic logging formats from AWS and Google Cloud services.
This functionality ensures that businesses can protect all of their network resources, regardless of where they are physically hosted. By choosing FastNetMon for DDoS detection and mitigation, businesses can employ a single tool for monitoring all of their assets, helping to reduce management overheads and costs and preventing tool sprawl.
Notably, FastNetMon is also fully scalable, keeping pace with traffic growth and ensuring that the network is always fully protected against attack.
Instant automated traffic diversion
Scrubbing centres are an essential aspect of DDoS attack mitigation. The faster suspicious traffic can be redirected for scrubbing, the less risk there is of your network being overloaded.
Traditional DDoS mitigation systems built around BGP traffic diversion are comparatively slow to respond. This delay will have a marked effect on network performance, impairing the user experience and functionality of critical business applications.
FastNetMon does not need to propagate diversion instructions. Instead it automatically implements redirection to the off-site DDoS scrubbing centre allowing for ultra-fast response times and ensuring legitimate traffic is unaffected.
Vendor neutral
Traditional network monitoring solutions may be tailored to a specific vendor’s tech stack. In order to provide a complete understanding of traffic flow, administrators must chain several different solutions together. This reduces transparency and leads to duplicated effort in terms of set-up and maintenance, increasing the risk of an important configuration being ‘missed’, leaving the network vulnerable.
FastNetMon is vendor neutral, ensuring it can be used with any hardware from any vendor for total transparency and control. By aggregating and actioning data from a range of built-in capture engines, administrators can dramatically simplify network configurations, using rules built into FastNetMon to handle DDoS mitigation directly.
Simple, fast install
Hardware network monitoring devices require physical installation adding to deployment time and disruption – and that is before configuration work begins.
FastNetMon is supplied as a virtual appliance, reducing disruption and accelerating deployment. The entire installation process can be completed in as little as 40 minutes. And thanks to one-click installers, the deployment is just as fast and simple when configuring DDoS attack detection on premises or in the cloud.
More than just a protective measure
Unlike traditional monitoring systems which perform a single function, DDoS attack detection, FastNetMon analysis can be applied to other business challenges. By collating and analysing all network traffic, your infrastructure team can gather a more granular understanding of exactly how the network is being used.
These insights are invaluable, allowing you to better plan infrastructure deployment and configuration for maximum performance. It also provides actionable intelligence about how resource-billed assets, like cloud infrastructure, are being used – identifying options for re-configuration that improve the user experience and help to reduce costs.
Take the next step
To learn more about FastNetMon and why it is the ultimate upgrade for your DDoS mitigation strategy, please contact us to arrange a free 30 day trial.