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Network TAPs are used to create permanent access ports for passive monitoring. A TAP, or test access port, can be set up between any two network devices, such as switches, routers, servers and firewalls to allow non-intrusive monitoring by network based Intrusion Detection Systems, content filter and analyzer products.

These devices are fully passive, ensuring continuous traffic flow and allowing nIDS sensors to operate at peak efficiency without interruption. The TAP can send traffic data to the monitoring device by splitting or regenerating the network signal. Neither splitting nor regeneration introduces delay, or change the content or structure of the information contained in the packets.

TAPs are called passive devices because they don't act on network traffic. If a TAP fails due to powerloss, traffic continues to run, and the network is not affected as the bypass circuit closes and the transmitted signal passes directly to the receiving network device.

In the case of fiber TAPs, the key internal components - fiber-optic splitters - do not require power. So they're not vulnerable to a power outage. Three key aspects of fiber TAPs are:

• Split ratio - Light Split between Live Network:Monitoring Device (50:50, 70:30)
• Fiber core size(62.5 or 50 mµ for multimode fiber)
• Fiber type (multimode or singlemode)

The reason TAPs secure your monitoring device is in it's design, most passive taps do not have receive capability on the monitoring side, so they can't receive information from the attached monitoring device. This can effectively render the attached monitoring device invisible to the network, eliminating it as an attack target for certain network attacks. However more recently some TAPs like our aggregation TAP include the receive functionality primarily to enable certain type of sensors to enject TCP resets to block offending traffic.

Given the many advantages TAPs are the obvious choice that allow you to leverage the full potential of your existing switched network by providing secure, permanent test access ports into critical network links for monitoring and analysis. This very technology is at the heart of the many secure installation within the government, defense, law enforcement, business enterprises and telecom carriers around the world.

Barracuda Portable Tap	Datacom Enterprise Taps
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