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Procera Networks will announce today a new standard in deep packet inspection (DPI) gear: an 80Gbps monster called the PacketLogic PL10000 that is targeted at tier-1 network operators. At up to $800,000 a unit, these aren't cheap, but when you want to throttle, inspect, and shape traffic in real-time on a major network, this is now the fastest thing on the market (and by a large margin)...

The PL10000 can handle up to 5 million subscribers and can track 48 million real-time data flows. That's certainly a potent piece of hardware, but larger ISPs will need more. That's why Procera designed the new machines with full support for synchronizing traffic flows where return traffic might be routed to a different PacketLogic machine. The machine receiving the return traffic can make the machine monitoring the outbound traffic aware that it sees the other half of a TCP/IP conversation, for example, giving the devices more accuracy than those which might only have access to one side. The capability also incurs overhead of only 2-6 percent, far better than the 25 or 50 percent sometimes seen in competing products.

DPI gear in general is astonishing technology, able to drill down to the packet level in real time, but the PL10000 can do this at 80Gbps with 96 percent accuracy. But how does it fare with P2P content, especially when it's encrypted? This is one of the key issues for ISPs using DPI gear as a less-expensive alternative to increasing capacity. I spoke James Brear, Procera's CEO, and Jon Lindén, the VP of Product Management, about the issue. While they did not break out specific accuracy numbers on P2P, they indicated that Procera was quite good even at sniffing out encrypted P2P traffic.

Breaking such encryption in real-time isn't currently possible, nor is it desirable from a privacy perspective, but Procera doesn't need to; most P2P protocols can be detected simply by analyzing header information, handshake peculiarities, or the way in which a particular application exchanges encryption keys. Such telltale traces can give away various kinds of encrypted traffic, and while the information within remains secure, the entire flow can be shaped or blocked if desired by the ISP...

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But Brear and Lindén made the case that this shouldn't be seen as a looming consumer nightmare, nor should it be seen as having anything to do with network neutrality. In their view, DPI is a competitive tool for ISPs in several ways. First, it allows ISPs to set charge for "services" like faster VoIP or gaming. Second, it can speed up the network by shaping P2P and other high-bandwidth applications at peak times, or enforce user quotas and bandwidth limits. Finally, DPI can be a security tool that gives ISPs a way to shut down DDoS attacks and viruses propagating through the network.

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Charter Starts Selling Your Browsing History
Don't worry, it's all to bring you an 'enhanced online experience...'
09:07AM Tuesday May 13 2008 by Karl
tags: business · cable · Charter Pipeline
Tipped by cjhorh See Profile

Behavioral advertising companies like NebuAD place deep packet inspection hardware on the ISP network, which monitors which sites you visit and for how long. ISPs then get paid for this data, which is then used to deliver customized ads to subscribers. I've discussed ho w there's a growing number of ISPs who've started using this technology, but don't properl y inform users they're doing so. The opt-out process also has problems, relying on cookies that only opt you out of ad delivery, not online usage tracking.

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