Plixer Scrutinizer Overview
Plixer Scrutinizer is a comprehensive network monitoring and analysis solution designed to collect, interpret, and contextualize data from every digital exchange and transaction within a network. This appliance is tailored to provide insightful network intelligence and robust security reports, making it an essential tool for IT professionals.
Key Functionality
- Data Collection and Processing: Scrutinizer collects network-related metadata from existing infrastructure such as switches, firewalls, packet brokers, and other network devices. It supports various flow protocols including NetFlow, sFlow, J Flow, R Flow, C Flow, NetStream, and IPFIX, consolidating this data into a unified database for efficient analysis.
- Scalability and Performance: The system is designed to scale up and process millions of flows per second, making it suitable for large and complex network environments. It is available as a rack-mountable hardware appliance or in virtualized packages compatible with ESX, Hyper-V, KVM, or AWS.
Key Features
- Network Reporting and Visibility: Scrutinizer provides detailed reports on network utilization, top conversations, top applications in use, busiest interfaces, and the activity of specific servers or PCs. It offers historical data on connections, allowing users to see what devices have connected over time.
- Advanced Reporting: The solution includes over 600 factory-defined report types and allows users to create custom reports. It supports advanced reporting on all vendor-specific exports and features full stitching and deduplication of flow data.
- Security and Threat Detection: Scrutinizer includes a robust security engine that identifies suspicious activity by analyzing traffic patterns and assigning risk scores. It features real-time DDoS detection, threat detection algorithms, and a Threat Index dashboard to highlight potential security issues.
- SD-WAN Support: The solution provides visibility and support for SD-WAN environments, helping to understand and troubleshoot the unpredictable route changes associated with SD-WAN configurations.
- Integration and Multi-Tenancy: Scrutinizer integrates with various third-party tools such as Splunk, Elastic Search, and supports multi-tenancy to keep selected data private. It also offers LDAP, Radius, and Tacacs authentication support and Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities.
- Alerts and Notifications: The system allows for the configuration of thresholds in saved reports to monitor traffic and trigger notifications. It also supports scheduled emailed reports in HTML and PDF formats.
- AI-Backed Capabilities: Scrutinizer leverages AI through the Plixer ML Engine for intelligent threat and anomaly detection, enhancing its ability to identify and respond to network irregularities.
Benefits
- Reduced Complexity: Scrutinizer simplifies NetOps and SecOps by providing actionable insights from vast amounts of raw flow data through accessible, context-aware visualizations and reports.
- Improved Efficiency: The solution minimizes downtime and loss of revenue by offering real-time database updates that quickly identify root causes of issues and reduce time-to-resolution metrics.
- Enhanced ROI: By collecting data directly from existing infrastructure, Scrutinizer eases implementation, reduces complexity, and improves ROI compared to solutions requiring additional proprietary appliances.
In summary, Plixer Scrutinizer is a powerful network monitoring and analysis tool that offers comprehensive visibility, advanced reporting, robust security features, and scalable performance, making it an invaluable asset for managing and optimizing network operations.