The optical circuit switch: A mission-critical component for network security

A successful cyber-attack can lead to severe reputational damage for commercial entities such as data centers or telecom providers if customer data is compromised. With banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, healthcare providers and municipal authorities all relying on successful data monitoring, service providers need the right solutions in place to ensure the highest levels of security, while complying with all legal requirements in their country.  

Effectively monitoring network traffic for interference or manipulation can be both time-consuming and expensive. The location of monitoring could be anywhere from a submarine landing station to a carrier facility, with the total number of fibers to review well into the thousands, depending on location. Each fiber can carry petabytes of data, giving operators an almost insurmountable amount of information to review.         

The monitoring process is complicated further by the wide variety of formats, data rates, wavelengths and protocols found within transmissions. Advanced analysis and collection tools that break down traffic on network links to identify signals of interest are available, yet the sheer number of lines to monitor makes frequent use of these an expensive approach. Using a smaller number of tools that can pre-select and monitor fibers enables operators to use their expensive tools only on information of interest, enabling them to carry out security checks in a cost-effective manner. 

Optical circuit switches hold the key to enhanced monitoring, providing a more efficient solution for operators. POLATIS switches can be programmed to pre-select fibers on a rotating basis to be passed on to auto-discovery tools, allowing data to be analysed and either forwarded for collection purposes or saved on a database if it is of interest. The database can then be analysed to provide greater insight as to the location of specific signals within the mass of internet traffic.  

For network surveying and collection environments to operate successfully, they require quick and reliable switching. POLATIS optical circuit switches provide the lowest insertion loss available and come with stable connections that add no noise to the signals traversing them, thus preserving the integrity of the optical signals under review, while making signal-agnostic connections regardless of the wavelength, protocol or data rate present on the fiber.