The ExtraHop system is a passive network appliance that is easy to deploy and manage. Deployed using a network tap, SPAN, VACL capture, or other data-access technology, the ExtraHop system analyzes application transactions in real time. Every application transaction undergoes analysis, not just a sample portion of network traffic as with synthetic transactions.
As soon as traffic is directed to one of the capture interfaces, the ExtraHop solution begins to automatically discover and classify devices, both physical and virtual, as well as relationships between devices based on MAC addresses, IP addresses, naming protocols, and other heuristic elements. As the IT environment changes, the ExtraHop system automatically detects and adjusts to those changes, such as new software builds and upgraded infrastructure components. By passively analyzing network traffic as an out-of-line device, the ExtraHop system avoids interfering with the operation of applications and systems and places no burden on servers or networks.
The passive deployment of the ExtraHop solution simplifies maintenance and distributed monitoring scenarios. IT administrators can easily update the system firmware remotely, making the ExtraHop system an ideal choice for deployment within physically isolated, or lights-out, datacenters. For geographically distributed systems and datacenters with tens of thousands of devices, the ExtraHop Central Manager delivers a consolidated view of application performance data from multiple ExtraHop appliances.
ExtraHop helps both network and application teams navigate and pinpoint their most difficult performance issues by harnessing the wealth of data that flows through the network in a simple non-intrusive manner with incredible scale. At its core is a complete application-fluent engine with intuitive diagnostics that turn data into something meaningful and actionable.
- Erik Giesa,
VP of Product Management, F5 Networks