Net Optics announced Phantom HD Virtual 2.0, a leap forward in the handling of virtual traffic of interest across the entire cloud infrastructure.

The new Phantom HD advance makes Net Optics the first company to virtualize tool-agnostic monitoring and access solutions for remote rapid deployments in virtualized data center and cloud computing environments.

Virtualization and consolidation call for particularly high levels of network integrity because in a virtual landscape, applications and administrative functions share common resources. The consequences of a failed, hacked or mismanaged element can extend to countless applications and users. Only with total visibility to monitor both the physical and virtual arenas can a company realize virtualization’s many benefits.

The Phantom HD 2.0:

- Extends monitoring and access across LAN/WAN/Cloud infrastructures and inter-VM traffic at high wire speeds, helping customers overcome barriers to total traffic visibility and achieve true computing mobility and inspection throughout locations, datacenters and devices in virtualized deployments.

- Is offered both as a virtual and physical appliance.

- Performs MPLS stripping, VN-Tag Stripping and Cisco FabricPath Stripping.

- Optimizes terminating and de-capsulating of the “tunnels” that transport traffic of interest from virtual networks to the instrumentation layer and can also encapsulate raw traffic of interest that needs to be transported to a remote location for inspection or storage.

- Permits the aggregation of Phantom Virtualization Taps, Net Optics Network Taps and the devices of other vendors.

- Is part of the Phantom Solution, which eases the virtualization transition by converging physical and virtual monitoring infrastructures.

With data centers virtualizing at a blistering pace, the monitoring infrastructure often struggles to keep up. Phantom HD 2.0 streamlines the processes of virtualization — needing no physical, wired connection between the monitoring and access layers and instrumentation layers. In the past, total monitoring and access capability demanded expensive physical hardware and installation on the data center floor (“boots on the ground”). But Phantom HD Virtual 2.0 appliance now offers these comprehensive capabilities as software that can be delivered, installed and configured remotely.

The new Phantom HD 2.0 high-throughput appliance allows switching layer and instrumentation layer devices such as high-end routers to perform the sophisticated functions they were designed for—rather than being wastefully employed on routine GRE de-capsulation tasks.

Also, users bridging virtual traffic to physical monitoring tools needn’t wrestle with the drawbacks of SPAN Ports or Promiscuous Mode on Virtual Switches.

Customers can gain the full benefit of their investment in these expensive products; in fact, virtualizing the Phantom HD can eliminate the purchase of costly new tools overall, holding down CAPEX, training and operations costs.