Bypass Switches: Ensuring Network Uptime and Security in High-Stakes Environments

Modern Bypass Switches also offer granular control and flexible configurations, allowing administrators to choose whether the device should fail open to prioritize uptime or fail closed to prioritize security. With features like remote management, logging, alerting, and the ability to validate inline devices during maintenance, they provide both visibility and control. This makes them particularly valuable in high-volume, low-latency, or encrypted traffic environments, allowing organizations to maintain security and operational continuity without compromise.

Vendors like Keysight, Cubro, Profitap, and Garland offer Bypass Switches and visibility solutions that prevent inline security tools from becoming single points of failure. By monitoring device health with heartbeat packets, link-state checks, and latency thresholds, these switches can automatically reroute traffic to maintain uninterrupted network operations in the event of an appliance failure or congestion.

What is a Bypass Switch

A Bypass Switch is a fail-safe device that maintains continuous traffic flow when an inline security appliance such as an IPS or firewall becomes unavailable. Under normal conditions, the switch directs all packets through the security device for inspection, filtering, and threat prevention. If the appliance fails, loses power, or must be taken offline for maintenance, the Bypass Switch instantly reroutes traffic around it to prevent downtime and keep the network operational.

To achieve this, the switch continuously monitors the health of the inline device using heartbeat packets, power detection, and link-state checks. As long as the heartbeats return, the appliance stays in the path. If the heartbeats are interrupted or performance thresholds are exceeded, the switch enters bypass mode and allows traffic to pass directly between network ports. This approach preserves uptime and enables organizations to service or replace security equipment without disrupting live traffic.

How External Bypass Switch Failover Works Today

Modern Bypass Switches are designed to actively safeguard both performance and security rather than simply acting as a passive relay. They constantly measure link conditions and appliance responsiveness in real time, using mechanisms such as power detection, link-state analysis, heartbeat packets, and latency thresholds. When these metrics indicate an emerging problem, the switch automatically removes the inline device from the data path before end users experience disruption.

Advanced Bypass Switches offer granular policies and flexible configurations, allowing administrators to choose fail-open for uptime or fail-closed for security based on application needs. With built-in remote management, logging, and alerting, teams can see when and why failovers occur and even validate inline devices during maintenance. These capabilities make them especially valuable in environments with heavy encrypted traffic, low-latency transactions, or critical infrastructure, ensuring uninterrupted flow while preserving the required level of protection and visibility.

The Added Value of a Bypass Switch

Protects uptime: Automatically reroutes traffic if an inline security or monitoring tool fails, loses power, or requires maintenance.

Eliminates single points of failure: Prevents downtime and costly outages in high-availability or mission-critical environments.

Enables seamless maintenance: Lets you patch, upgrade, or replace IPS, IDS, firewalls, and other inline tools without interrupting live traffic.

Provides proactive monitoring: Uses heartbeat packets, link-state checks, and latency thresholds to detect performance issues early.

Maximizes security investments: Ensures your inline devices deliver their full value while minimizing operational and business risk.

Bypass Switches deliver the greatest value in environments where inline security tools such as IPS, IDS, firewalls, or DLP appliances are potential single points of failure. In high-availability networks, even brief outages caused by maintenance, software updates, or device crashes can disrupt business-critical applications. A Bypass Switch eliminates that risk by instantly routing traffic around the inline device if it becomes unresponsive or needs to be taken offline. This allows security teams to perform updates or swap hardware without interrupting live traffic.

They also shine in high-throughput or latency-sensitive applications, such as data centers, financial trading platforms, healthcare systems, and critical infrastructure, where uptime and reliability are paramount. By continuously monitoring link health with heartbeat packets and latency thresholds, bypass switches detect performance issues before they impact users. In these situations, they act as a safeguard that protects service continuity and ensures organizations get full value from their inline security investments without introducing new risks.

Contact our sales team today for a free consultation and quote on bypass switches tailored to your network needs.

Network Visibility: Security Applications of Network TAPs, Brokers and Bypass Switches

Security starts with awareness, but what happens when critical traffic slips through unnoticed? For security teams and network administrators alike, network visibility isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. As threats become more sophisticated, ensuring complete, real-time access to network traffic is the first step in defending against malicious activity. This is where technologies like Network TAPs, Network Packet Brokers, and Bypass Switches come into play.

What is Network Visibility?

Network visibility refers to the ability to monitor all traffic flowing across a network—north-south (between users and data centers) and east-west (between internal systems, users and endpoints). Without it, blind spots emerge, leaving room for attackers to move undetected.

Visibility tools like Network TAPs (Test Access Points), Network Packet Brokers (NPBs), and Bypass Switches are the foundation for building a resilient, secure, and high-performance network. Each plays a unique role in feeding security appliances the data they need to function effectively.

Network TAPs: Your First Line of Insight

Network TAPs (Test Access Points) are dedicated hardware devices designed to deliver a real-time, unfiltered copy of network traffic. Placed in-line between network segments, TAPs allow all data to flow through uninterrupted while simultaneously duplicating that traffic for monitoring and security tools. Unlike other methods that may filter or miss packets under load, TAPs provide a complete and accurate view of every packet traversing the network—ensuring your tools receive 100% of the data, with zero interference, loss, or blind spots.

Security Use Cases:

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) rely on clean, complete traffic to detect anomalies.

Forensics and packet capture solutions use TAPs to store traffic for analysis after an incident.

Decryption appliances can tap into SSL/TLS sessions for deep inspection.

Network TAPs are available from vendors like Garland Technology, Cubro, Profitap and Keysight.

Network Packet Brokers: Smart Traffic Management

Gaining visibility is just the first step—managing that traffic effectively is where the real challenge begins. This is where Network Packet Brokers (NPBs) come into play. These smart, purpose-built devices aggregate traffic from multiple sources, then filter, de-duplicate, and reformat it before sending it to your security and monitoring tools. 

By delivering only the relevant data in the optimal format, NPBs reduce tool overload, eliminate unnecessary noise, and ensure that each system receives precisely what it needs to operate at peak efficiency.

Security Use Cases:

Traffic filtering: Send only relevant data to specific security appliances to reduce overload. 

Load balancing: Distribute traffic across multiple tools for redundancy and scalability. 

Packet deduplication and header stripping: Eliminate noise and unnecessary metadata that can bog down inspection.

Bypass Switches: High Availability for In-line Security

Bypass Switches, unlike TAPs and Network Packet Brokers, are purpose-built for in-line security tools—such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and secure web gateways—that actively inspect and control live traffic. Because these tools sit directly in the path of network data, any failure or maintenance downtime can disrupt the flow of traffic and impact availability. Bypass switches solve this challenge by intelligently redirecting traffic around the in-line device if it becomes unresponsive or needs to be taken offline. This ensures continuous uptime, minimizes risk, and allows security teams to maintain and upgrade in-line defenses without interrupting business operations.

Security Use Cases:

Fail-safe failover: If an in-line appliance fails or is taken down for maintenance, bypass switches keep traffic flowing uninterrupted.

Heartbeat monitoring: Ensure that in-line tools are healthy and responsive.

Scheduled updates and maintenance windows: Perform patching or upgrades without interrupting traffic.

The Power of an Integrated Visibility Fabric

Individually, TAPs, Brokers, and Bypass Switches solve specific problems. Together, they form a visibility fabric—a unified, scalable approach to traffic monitoring that supports both performance and security initiatives.

If you’re struggling with visibility gaps or underperforming security tools, it’s time to rethink your monitoring strategy. Contact the Telnet Networks sales team to learn how we can help you deploy the right mix of Network TAPs, Network Packet Brokers, and Bypass Switches  from market leading and innovative partners like Garland Technology, Cubro, Profitap and Keysight to secure your infrastructure from the ground up.