Methods and apparatuses for abstracting filters in a network visibility infrastructure

A method for managing packet duplication in a plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements of a visibility network, said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements configured for redirecting packets to monitoring tools, said packets representing packets transmitted by a switching network or packets generated from said packets transmitted by said switching network, comprising:

• providing said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements;
• providing a plurality of filters, wherein at least one filter of said plurality of filters is associated with each of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements;
• providing a centralized filter control module, wherein said centralized filter control module has information pertaining ports of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements, said centralized filter control module being disposed remote from and communicably coupled with each of said plurality of filters;
• and
• implementing hierarchical packet duplication, using said centralized filter control module, such that if a packet is destined toward multiple destination ports of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements, said packet is duplicated only by the network visibility infrastructure element disposed immediately before physical paths toward the direction of the multiple destination ports diverge and such that multiple copies of said packet do not traverse the same physical hop between two network visibility infrastructure elements while being transmitted between an origination port of one of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements toward said multiple destination ports.

A method for implementing redundancy in a visibility network, said visibility network having a plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements configured for redirecting packets to monitoring tools, said packets representing packets transmitted by switching elements of a switching network or packets generated from said packets transmitted by switching elements of said switching network, comprising:

• providing said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements;
• providing a plurality of filters, wherein at least one filter of said plurality of filters is associated with each of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements;
• providing a centralized filter control module, wherein said centralized filter control module has information pertaining ports of said plurality of network visibility infrastructure elements, said centralized filter control module being disposed remote from and communicably coupled with each of said plurality of filters;
• ascertaining, utilizing said information, whether communication between a given switching element of said switching network and a given monitoring tool of said monitoring tools has multiple possible paths;
• and
• switching from a first path of said multiple possible paths to a second path of said multiple possible paths if said communication using first path experiences failure.