METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR ABSTRACTING FILTERS IN A NETWORK VISIBILITY INFRASTRUCTURE

摘要

Embodiments of the invention disclose methods for managing visibility filters in a plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements of a visibility network such that these network visibility infrastructure elements and their filters are managed as a network and filter configuring, packet replication, and redundancy are implemented efficiently from a centralized filter control module.

主权项

1. A method for managing visibility filters in a plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements of a visibility network, said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements configured for redirecting packets to monitoring tools, said packets representing packets transmitted by a switching network or packets generated from said packets transmitted by said switching network, comprising:
providing a plurality of filters, wherein at least one filter of said plurality of filters is associated with each of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements; providing a centralized filter control module, wherein said centralized filter control module has information pertaining network ports, tool ports, and visibility element ports of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements, said centralized filter control module being disposed remote from and communicably coupled with each of said plurality of filters; and configuring said filters by specifying, for each of said filters, information pertaining to network port, filter parameters, action to be taken, and tool port, wherein said configuring is performed using said centralized filter control module.