You Cannot Secure
What You Cannot See.
A Network Packet Broker gives your security and monitoring tools complete, filtered, and optimised visibility into every packet on your network — without degrading performance.
Trusted by 30+ enterprises across India — gaining complete network visibility
Why Enterprises Trust Layerix for
Packet Broker Deployment
Most security teams struggle with tool overload and blind spots. Layerix designs and deploys NPB architectures that give your tools clean, de‑duplicated, filtered traffic — all without touching production forwarding.
Vendor‑Neutral Advice
We deploy Gigamon, Ixia (Keysight), and cPacket — recommending the right NPB for your environment, not margin.
Zero Production Impact
NPB sits out‑of‑band — your live traffic never passes through it. No latency added to production forwarding.
SSL Decryption Expertise
Decrypt once, feed many tools — we design decryption policies that comply with privacy and regulatory requirements.
Right‑Sized Architecture
We size the NPB to match your tool count and throughput, avoiding overspend or overload.
100% In‑House Engineers
Every tap, every NPB, every policy is deployed by our 28‑member team — no subcontractors.
Post‑Deployment Support
Policy updates, firmware upgrades, and health checks under AMC or Resident Engineer.
NPB Deployment in 6 Steps
Discovery
Inventory existing monitoring tools, SPAN ports, and bandwidth requirements.
Tap / SPAN Planning
Identify critical monitoring points (core uplinks, WAN edge, server segments) — deploy hardware TAPs where needed.
NPB Sizing & Selection
Choose NPB model based on tool count, throughput, filtering needs, and budget — vendor‑neutral recommendation.
Installation
Rack, cable, and connect NPB to taps and security tools — 100% in‑house certified engineers.
Policy Configuration
Configure traffic filtering, de‑duplication, load balancing, and SSL decryption policies.
Validation & Handover
Verify each tool receives correct traffic, document the architecture, and train your team.
What Is a Network Packet Broker?
An NPB sits between your network taps/SPAN ports and your security tools, aggregating, filtering, and delivering clean traffic to each tool.
Architecture Flow
The NPB is transparent to production traffic. Zero latency introduced to forwarding path.
Without vs With Layerix NPB
❌ Without NPB
- ✗Tools receive duplicate packets — false alerts, wasted processing
- ✗High‑speed 40G links overwhelm 10G security tools
- ✗Multiple tools each need individual SPAN ports — switches run out
- ✗Encrypted traffic invisible to monitoring tools
- ✗No centralised visibility control point
✅ With Layerix NPB
- ✓De‑duplicated, filtered traffic delivered to each tool
- ✓Traffic sliced and speed‑matched — no tool overload
- ✓Single aggregation point for all monitoring tools
- ✓SSL decrypted once, shared to all tools
- ✓Centralised policy control over all monitoring feeds
NPB Capabilities
Traffic Aggregation
Combine traffic from multiple SPAN ports and network taps into one centralised management point.
Packet Filtering & Slicing
Send only relevant traffic to each tool — reduce tool load and licensing cost by up to 60%.
Load Balancing
Distribute traffic across multiple instances of the same security tool to prevent overload.
SSL/TLS Decryption
Decrypt once and share plaintext with multiple tools — without re‑decrypting at each appliance.
De‑duplication
Remove duplicate packets before they reach your SIEM — reduce false positives and storage costs.
Hardware Timestamping
Nanosecond‑accurate timestamps for precise forensic analysis and latency troubleshooting.
Industry Use Cases
Financial Services
Regulatory compliance requires full packet capture and retention. NPB enables this without saturating individual monitoring tools.
Healthcare
Patient data flows must be monitored for compliance and data exfiltration — NPB provides visibility without performance impact.
Data Centres
40G/100G core links need traffic fed to 10G monitoring tools. NPB handles the speed mismatch cleanly.
Multi‑Tool Environments
When you run IDS, SIEM, and packet capture simultaneously, NPB ensures each tool gets clean, relevant traffic.
Real NPB Deployments
Every photo is from an actual Layerix deployment. No stock imagery. No subcontractors.
NPB appliance installation — data centre, Bengaluru
TAP and aggregation cabling — enterprise server room
Traffic validation post‑deployment — financial client, Mumbai
NPB Deployments Across India
Traffic aggregation, filtering, and load balancing for enterprise security tools in real production environments.
NPB for Every Sector
Financial Services
Regulatory packet capture & retention
Healthcare
Patient data flow monitoring
Data Centres
40/100G speed‑matching
Multi‑Tool Environments
Clean traffic to IDS, SIEM, PCAP
Manufacturing
OT/IT visibility without disruption
Technology
Developer & security tool optimisation
Hospitality
Guest network traffic monitoring
Commercial Real Estate
Multi‑tenant visibility segmentation
Packet Broker Questions
Everything you need to know about NPB and network visibility.
What is the difference between a SPAN port and a network TAP?+
A SPAN (port mirror) copies traffic from a switch port to a monitoring port — it is built into the switch and costs nothing extra. A network TAP is a passive hardware device that physically copies traffic from a cable — it is more reliable because it does not depend on the switch and does not drop packets under load. For critical monitoring, Layerix recommends hardware TAPs over SPAN ports.
Will the NPB slow down our network?+
No. The NPB only handles copied (out‑of‑band) traffic — it never sits in the path of production traffic. Your network forwarding performance is completely unaffected.
How many tools can one NPB feed?+
This depends on the NPB model and its port count. Entry‑level NPBs support 4–8 tool ports. Enterprise‑grade NPBs support 16–32+. We size the NPB based on your tool count and traffic volume.
Do we need an NPB if we only have one monitoring tool?+
For a single tool, a SPAN port may be sufficient. An NPB becomes valuable when you have multiple tools, high‑speed links that exceed tool capacity, or when you need filtering and de‑duplication to reduce tool licensing costs.
Can an NPB handle encrypted traffic?+
Yes — with SSL/TLS decryption capability, an NPB can decrypt traffic once and feed the plaintext to multiple tools, rather than each tool decrypting independently. This requires careful policy design to comply with privacy and data handling requirements.
What brands of NPB do you deploy?+
Layerix deploys Gigamon, Ixia (Keysight), and cPacket — selected based on your throughput, tool count, and budget requirements. We are vendor‑neutral in our recommendations.
What is a network TAP and do we need to install one on every link?+
A network TAP is a passive hardware device that creates a copy of traffic on a network cable without affecting the live traffic. You do not need a TAP on every link — we work with you to identify the critical monitoring points (core uplinks, WAN edge, server segments) where visibility has the most security value.
Can the NPB filter by application, not just IP and port?+
Enterprise NPBs support Layer 7 filtering — including application identification, URL‑based filtering, and protocol‑specific slicing. This allows you to send web traffic to your web application firewall, VoIP to your quality monitor, and everything else to your SIEM — all from a single aggregation point.
What is de‑duplication and why does it matter?+
In redundant network topologies, the same packet can arrive at your monitoring tap from multiple paths — appearing twice or more in your capture. De‑duplication removes these copies before they reach your SIEM or IDS, reducing false positives, storage requirements, and processing load on your security tools.
Can you integrate an NPB with our existing IDS and SIEM?+
Yes — the NPB sits between your network taps and your existing tools. It requires no changes to the tools themselves; it simply delivers cleaner, filtered, correctly‑load‑balanced traffic to each tool's existing input interface.
Our Visibility Success Stories
Real NPB outcomes from enterprises across India
Give Your Security Tools the Visibility They Deserve
Book a free NPB consultation. Our certified engineers design a visibility architecture that feeds clean, filtered traffic to your IDS, SIEM, and packet capture tools.
Response within 4 business hours · Pan‑India deployments · Gigamon, Ixia, cPacket certified