NetQuest introduced its Aspen network interface card (NIC) adapter designed to capture, inspect, and forwarded out-of-band SONET/SDH traffic at up to OC48/STM-16.
As with all other NICs in the company’s PINNICLE family of WAN/LAN NICs, Aspen is designed to optimize the performance of high-speed monitoring platforms by off-loading and pre-processing traffic for more efficient use by the host.
Specifically, Aspen provides support for line speeds up to and including OC48/STM-16 in ATM, Packet over SONET/SDH (POS), and TDM networks, as well as support for 1G traffic in Ethernet networks. Aspen sustains traffic flow at full line rates without packet loss, making it especially useful in such applications as intrusion detection, performance monitoring, and lawful interception. This unprecedented flexibility combined with the use of standard pluggable SFP transceivers make Aspen an obvious choice for system developers on a global basis.
The new Aspen adapter expands upon NetQuest’s Tahoe NIC by increasing port density to four ports. The quad port can be configured to provide non-intrusive monitoring access for two full-duplex SONET/SDH lines, four Gigabit Ethernet lines, or a mix of line speeds and technologies on a single NIC.
