How Niagara’s Advanced Packet Broker Enables Scalable Security Intelligence
In today’s high-bandwidth networks, Security Operations Centers (SOCs) face the challenge of managing and analyzing vast amounts of mirrored traffic - copies of network data used for monitoring and analysis - without overloading tools or breaching compliance boundaries like GDPR or HIPAA. Niagara Networks’ Advanced Packet Brokers provide an intelligent visibility infrastructure that enhances security, optimizes performance, and reduces operational costs.
The deployment illustrated in the diagram above demonstrates how the Niagara Advanced Packet Broker enables two powerful functions within a single visibility node. Needless to say, additional traffic intelligence functions can be deployed as part of this architecture, but here we focus on a real-life mission-critical use case:
Let’s explore how each capability contributes to an efficient visibility architecture.
Mirrored traffic from two core routers enters the Niagara Packet Broker via 100G interfaces. The broker slices selected traffic- filtered by criteria such as protocol or IP range - and forwards it via a 10G interface to a security inspection appliance for real-time inspection and threat detection. Packet slicing optimizes Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), a process that analyzes packet headers and payloads, by reducing tool load by up to 50% (depending on configuration), accelerating DPI and signature-based analysis, and excluding sensitive payloads to align with privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and PCI.
Top 3 Benefits of Packet Slicing in This Scenario:
This functionality allows security tools to operate faster, smarter, and more securely - while minimizing unnecessary processing of real-time production traffic.
In parallel, the same mirrored traffic is converted into flow-level metadata using NetFlow v9, a standard protocol for summarizing network traffic statistics. The Niagara Advanced Packet Broker efficiently generates and sends this data to two separate NetFlow collectors, each in a distinct network domain (e.g., separate subnets for NOC and SOC). This process, optimized to minimize overhead on 100G interfaces, delivers IP-level metadata, application protocol details (TCP/UDP), packet/byte counters, and flow start/stop times for analytics.
Each collector receives:
Deployed at a strategic network location, the Advanced Packet Broker enables centralized and remote analytics, supporting use cases like:
A key advantage of this deployment is exporting NetFlow records to two independent collectors, each serving a distinct purpose. For example, the Network Operations Center (NOC) uses flow data to monitor bandwidth usage and service health, while the Security Operations Center (SOC) focuses on detecting threats and ensuring compliance. This separation ensures tailored analytics without tool overload. For even greater efficiency, a hybrid bypass solution - integrating a packet broker, network TAP, and bypass switch in a compact 1RU platform- can further streamline visibility infrastructure.For example, one collector may serve the Network Operations Center (NOC) to monitor performance metrics and service health, while the second collector supports the Security Operations Center (SOC), focusing on threat detection, anomaly tracking, and compliance reporting.
This separation ensures that each team receives the data it needs—without tool overload or workflow bottlenecks. Niagara’s Advanced Packet Broker supports this by natively duplicating and exporting enriched flow metadata, without requiring additional taps, probes, or appliances.
In more versatile deployments, a hybrid bypass solution can be used—combining an advanced packet broker, network TAP, and bypass switch into a compact 1RU platform to further streamline visibility infrastructure.
Beyond packet slicing and NetFlow generation, Niagara’s Advanced Packet Brokers provide a comprehensive suite of inline and out-of-band network intelligence functions. These include advanced filtering (selecting traffic by criteria like IP or protocol), tunnel header removal (stripping encapsulation headers like MPLS or VXLAN), SSL/TLS decryption, header stripping, packet deduplication (removing redundant packets), time stamping, data masking, and more. Since header stripping and packet slicing are often confused, it’s important to clarify their distinct purposes. The table below compares the two functions:
The Niagara Advanced Packet Broker eliminates the need for external flow exporters or switch SPAN ports, reducing hardware footprint by consolidating visibility functions into a single appliance. Acting as a strategic visibility concentrator, it performs:
This modular architecture integrates seamlessly with tools like Splunk, Wireshark, and cloud-based SOC platforms, ensuring compatibility with industry-standard security and analytics stacks.
As networks scale, balancing tool performance, compliance, and real-time visibility is critical. Niagara’s Advanced Packet Broker empowers SOC and NOC teams with scalable, precise traffic intelligence.
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Niagara Networks are industry specialists in network visibility, providing advanced network visibility solutions for the specific needs of individual enterprises and national large and complex networks.
Don’t leave your network vulnerable to security threats, schedule a consultation with one of our network visibility experts today to evaluate your network visibility challenges.