CASE STUDY

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OverviewA prominent U.S.-based bank recently selected Ixia’s Net Optics network visibility solutions to play a powerful role in a breakthrough security monitoring strategy. Within its innovative design, the Ixia Visibility Architecture mitigates the mounting complexities of securing financial industry networks with unrivaled flexibility, performance, and scalability.

The Customer NeedLike most major financial institutions, this multinational bank faces a steady stream of high-volume Denial of Service (DoS) attacks that can compromise both revenues and the company’s reputation. While its defenses have fared well so far, the organization proactively decided to upgrade its security infrastructure with a highly innovative, multi-layer approach.

The bank’s IT team devised an innovative architecture featuring new DoS and malware protection, a state-of-the-art intrusion prevention system (IPS), security analytics, and third-party reputation services. After passing through traditional distributed denial of service (DDoS) prevention devices, traffic will be decrypted and forwarded to the IPS, then on to other security tools for real-time and future analysis of traffic and security trends. After this, the traffic will be re-encrypted and injected back into the network with no impact to network performance.

This breakthrough security design also adds intelligent management and distribution of traffic between security elements so traffic can be load-balanced as the network grows. Ixia’s Net Optics xStream Network Packet Brokers (NPBs) and 10G Bypass Switches effectively serve as the glue that holds it all together, making sure traffic flows through the right elements in the right order—without adding latency that will impact network performance.

Why They’re Banking on Ixia By adding visibility within a handful of critical data centers, Ixia Net Optics 10G Bypass Switches and xStream 40 devices maximize uptime by allowing changes to be made to the security architecture at any time, automatically bypassing misbehaving elements in the network. Advantages include:

• Flexibility to support architectural innovations;

• A “cut-through” solution that adds virtually no latency, even as traffic passes through the xStream 40 multiple times;

• Scalability, both of the Ixia solution, and the ability to allow each security providers’ solution to scale most efficiently. As devices are added, we aggregate and play “traffic cop,” effectively distributing traffic across them;

• Reliability as devices are taken in and out of the network without interrupting traffic flow.

Ixia Visibility Solutions Help Leading Banks Improve Security Deployments

CompanyA premier U.S.-based banking institution.

Market ChallengeInternational financial services providers continue to represent high-profile targets for malicious hackers and other security threats. Proactive end-to-end network and security monitoring plays a pivotal role in staying a step ahead of attackers and safeguarding organizations’ revenues and reputations.

Key IssuesMaintaining visibility across an innovative, multi-stage security architecture without negatively impacting network and application performance.

ResultsIxia’s Visibility Architecture helps maximize visibility, security, and uptime simultaneously. Ixia Net Optics Bypass Switches and xStream 40 devices maintain real-time performance while positioning the customer to continue evolving its security defenses into the future.

CASE STUDY

Ixia Worldwide Headquarters26601 Agoura Rd.Calabasas, CA 91302

(Toll Free North America)1.877.367.4942

(Outside North America)+1.818.871.1800(Fax) 818.871.1805www.ixiacom.com

Ixia European HeadquartersIxia Technologies Europe LtdClarion House, Norreys DriveMaidenhead SL6 4FLUnited Kingdom

Sales +44 1628 408750(Fax) +44 1628 639916

Ixia Asia Pacifi c Headquarters21 Serangoon North Avenue 5#04-01Singapore 554864

Sales +65.6332.0125Fax +65.6332.0127

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The project is slated to extend to additional data centers. Should the security architecture grow with time, the Ixia visibility architecture will scale along with network changes to support innovation into the future.

The Ixia Net Optics SolutionIxia Net Optics Bypass Switches provide fail-safe, inline protection for security and monitoring devices. When IPSs, firewalls, and other appliances fail or lose power, bypass switches divert the flow of network traffic to maintain uptime until the device is restored.

The xStream platform includes solutions for aggregating, filtering, and load-balancing traffic to multiple monitoring tools. Learn more at: http://www.ixiacom.com.

Sample customer deployment

Ixia iBypass Switches

IxiaxStream 40

IxiaxStream 40

DDoS

DDoS

Encrypt

Decrypt

Other

Forensics

Recording

IPS

In-Series

IPS

Other

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