Introduction to Inline Bypass Solutions

Inline bypass solutions place the Gigamon node inline between two sides of a network. The Gigamon node sends uninspected traffic from one side of the network to an inline tool (such as an IPS), and then sends the inspected traffic to the other side of the network.

The reasons for deploying Gigamon’s inline bypass solutions are as follows:

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to protect against inline tool failures (including loss of link to inline tools and any inline tool problems detected through heartbeat monitoring)

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to bypass the inline tools for traffic that does not need to be examined by the tools or that cannot be processed by the tools

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to distribute the traffic load among multiple tools

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to send specific traffic to specialized inline tools

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to guide traffic serially through the inline tools, with the traffic from one tool flowing to the next, so that all tools see the same traffic

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to share inline tools among multiple inline network links

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to implement tiered network security by combining inline and out-of-band, allowing the traffic to be examined by both types of tools

For improved reliability and ease of maintenance, the inline bypass solutions also provide the following:

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protection against power loss through physical bypass

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protection against power loss through the high availability solution, Gigamon Resiliency for Inline Protection (GRIP™)