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Easy Ways to Improve Network Reliability and Performance

Keith Bromley

There was a recent blog on APMdigest by Pete Goldin — Protecting Network Performance is as Essential as Securing the Network — that I wanted to follow up on.

As mentioned in the blog, performance issues and outages are possible when security tools (like an IPS, WAF, etc.) are inserted inline. However, one easy way to mitigate this concern is to deploy a bypass switch before the inline tool. This creates a fail-over mechanism to let traffic continue to flow downstream, should there be a tool failure. Heartbeat signals between the bypass switch and the tool can create a self-healing architecture that restores normal traffic inspection protocols once the security tool comes back online.

While some tools have internal bypass switches, these internal bypass switches can actually lower the mean time between failure (MTBF) for that type of deployment scenario. External bypass switches deliver an improved confidence in network and application reliability without costing an arm and a leg.

In addition, should you want to remove the tool from service altogether (or perform maintenance upgrades), the bypass switch can accommodate that with minimal (on the order of milliseconds) service disruption.

Another concern raised from the SANS report referenced in the blog was that some of features do not get activated on inline tools because of the performance hit associated with many of those features (e.g., SSL decryption, deduplication). A quick solution to this is deploy a network packet broker (NPB). The best place to insert the NPB is between the bypass switch and the security tool(s), as this can provide an even stronger level of network reliability, especially if traffic load balancing or high availability features are deployed on the NPB.

From a performance perspective though, this is where you can really see a benefit. Instead of activating SSL decryption on your firewall and slowing the throughput to a crawl, perform the decryption/encryption functionality on the NPB (which should have dedicated resources to perform the function). Now you can perform the decryption functions you need to inspect for encrypted malware and also maintain the level of network performance that your internal and external customers demand.

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Easy Ways to Improve Network Reliability and Performance

Keith Bromley

There was a recent blog on APMdigest by Pete Goldin — Protecting Network Performance is as Essential as Securing the Network — that I wanted to follow up on.

As mentioned in the blog, performance issues and outages are possible when security tools (like an IPS, WAF, etc.) are inserted inline. However, one easy way to mitigate this concern is to deploy a bypass switch before the inline tool. This creates a fail-over mechanism to let traffic continue to flow downstream, should there be a tool failure. Heartbeat signals between the bypass switch and the tool can create a self-healing architecture that restores normal traffic inspection protocols once the security tool comes back online.

While some tools have internal bypass switches, these internal bypass switches can actually lower the mean time between failure (MTBF) for that type of deployment scenario. External bypass switches deliver an improved confidence in network and application reliability without costing an arm and a leg.

In addition, should you want to remove the tool from service altogether (or perform maintenance upgrades), the bypass switch can accommodate that with minimal (on the order of milliseconds) service disruption.

Another concern raised from the SANS report referenced in the blog was that some of features do not get activated on inline tools because of the performance hit associated with many of those features (e.g., SSL decryption, deduplication). A quick solution to this is deploy a network packet broker (NPB). The best place to insert the NPB is between the bypass switch and the security tool(s), as this can provide an even stronger level of network reliability, especially if traffic load balancing or high availability features are deployed on the NPB.

From a performance perspective though, this is where you can really see a benefit. Instead of activating SSL decryption on your firewall and slowing the throughput to a crawl, perform the decryption/encryption functionality on the NPB (which should have dedicated resources to perform the function). Now you can perform the decryption functions you need to inspect for encrypted malware and also maintain the level of network performance that your internal and external customers demand.

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AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...

In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

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As AI moves from generating responses to performing actions, the need for trust increases exponentially. And as organizations enlist AI agents for increasingly sophisticated business processes, trust is going to be the single most important theme for spurring adoption. What can organizations do to build trustworthy AI agents? ...

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Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

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