cPacket Networks has launched new high-speed network probe capable of delivering one way distributed latency and jitter measurements at sub-microsecond accuracy for networks operating at 10 gigabits per seconds and beyond. The probe, called the cTap Latency Probe (cTapLP), is an addition to the company’s cTap monitoring product family.
The company said that the cPacket probes perform one-way, hop-to-hop, and round trip latency measurements in real time, and a centralised dashboard provides correlated results from distributed probes across the network, using integrated time-synchronisation technology.
According to cPacket, the cTapLP features technology that is capable of measuring network latency at 1,000 times the accuracy previously attainable with existing approaches. The passive inline probes can be distributed through the network, enabling a detailed one-way and hop-to-hop analysis of network behavior, including spikes and microbursts, with reporting to a centralised dashboard.
The company claims that the cTapLPs do not affect the performance of the network. They feature the ability to synchronise a group of probes to an accurate GPS clock source, and limit the clock skew between the distributed measurement points. This enables deployment of distributed probes for one-way and hop-to-hop latency and jitter analysis.
In addition, the central dashboard provides reports of application behavior and network utilisation, and pinpoints excessive sources of latency and jitter before they impact business operations. It can also generate triggers to alert users, or programmatically alert another application, such as a trading platform, to alter its behavior in response.
Rony Kay, president and chief technology officer of cPacket, said: “Existing approaches to measuring network latency are based on software and network interface cards that receive data from switch or router SPAN ports or aggregation devices that introduce unacceptably high variability and inherent measurement error. Our cTapLP utilises cPacket’s own custom chips and proprietary hardware and software that can consistently achieve accurate analysis under any traffic conditions.”
