​Each of us has sat in standstill traffic, trying to understand why this major highway we drive all the time has suddenly backed up, with our phone maps application showing a line of red for the next mile or two. As we crawl towards the bottleneck, we see it: A fender bender with dented cars still blocking a lane of traffic. We see police on the scene, and it looks like they're waiting for a tow truck to arrive to get the vehicles off the road. With plenty of time to think as we wait with hundreds of others to get through the log-jam, we ask ourselves: How much is this accident costing all the people around me in terms of 1) time 2) lost productivity 3) wasted fuel, etc?

​A network running 100G of traffic can be very similar to the commuter's headache described above. Security tools are a given in today's big networks, but when there's an 'accident' (tool outage), the costs of a slow response to clearing the 'highway' can be enormous. Ixia's new iBypass 100G is the best way to ensure that tool outages, which are inevitable in high traffic environments, don't slow down any network traffic. The iBypass 100G has up to two modules (either single-mode or multi-mode) which feature configurable heartbeat detection to allow constant monitoring of the attached tools, so that the second a problem is detected, traffic can be diverted from the tools so that it flows without interruption until the outage is resolved.

​Speaking of traffic nightmares, we sometimes find ourselves cursing at city planners who have seemingly scheduled a road repair during rush hour, when it could have been done at 3am on a Sunday morning with much less impact on the 8am meeting we are now going to miss. Ixia's iBypass 100G is designed so that its easy to schedule tool maintenance and take advantage of our forced bypass mode to divert traffic while tool maintenance or upgrades are performed during off hours.

​If you could guarantee a smooth commute on a highway where accidents were cleared within seconds of happening, where road maintenance was never scheduled during the hours you drive to work, and where there were always enough lanes to accommodate the busiest times of day, wouldn't you choose that over the alternative? We agree. Choose Ixia's new iBypass 100G for all your network packet "commuters".

Thank you to Todd Puner, Product Manager with Ixia, a Keysight Business, for the article.