Shark Appliance Kit Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Shark Appliance Kit?
- What can a Shark Appliance Kit do?
- What is the Shark Distributed Monitoring System?
- What is Pilot Console?
- Does Pilot Console come with my Shark Appliance Kit?
- There are multiple types of Shark Appliances Kits, which one is best for my enterprise?
- What are the minimum requirements for the Shark Appliance Kit SAK-100?
- What are the minimum requirements for the Shark Appliance Kit SAK-200?
- What type of disk configuration do I need in a Shark Appliance Kit?
- Why should I buy a kit if there is an appliance available?
- Where do I put my Shark Appliance?
- What is the Shark Packet Recorder?
- How many Shark Appliances can I use with my Pilot Console?
The Shark Appliance Kit is our Shark Appliance software with one or more TurboCap™ GbE cards for capturing network data. The software is installed on a PC server that meets or exceeds our minimum hardware requirements.
Every Shark Appliance includes the Shark Packet Recorder, a customized packet capture application for high fidelity, multi-gigabit per second network traffic recording. It is designed to provide full packet capture at GbE line speed with zero packet loss.
The Shark Distributed Monitoring System provides a complete enterprise-wide solution for increased network visibility through live traffic monitoring, full-line-rate data capture, real-time and historical traffic analysis, monitoring, and reporting from multiple locations.
Please read more about the SDMS at http://www.cacetech.com/products/sdms.html.
The Pilot Console is an enhanced version of CACE Pilot that seamlessly and securely interfaces with one or more Shark Appliances to display, drill down into, rewind, alert, and report on, network traffic captured by the Appliances.
Pilot Console is sold separately. Please read more about Pilot Console at http://www.cacetech.com/products/pilot_console.html.
There are two Shark Appliances Kits available, the SAK-100 and SAK-200. The best solution for your enterprise depends on your network data traffic and the amount of storage needed for real-time and retrospective analysis.
The Shark Appliance Kit can be run on hardware that meets the requirements below. It will also need to be setup with a very specific disk configuration for the system disk and the Packet Recorder disk.
| Form Factor | 1U |
| Processors | 2 x Intel Nehalem Quad Core E5520 2.26Ghz |
| Memory | 6GB |
| DVD-ROM | 1 |
| File system | 500GB (7200 rpm) |
 |
| Shark Packet Recorder Storage System | |
| RAID Controller | Hardware RAID level 0 (8-lane PCIe) |
| Storage | 4 x 1TB (SATAII, 7200 rpm) |
| Packet Capture | 1 x 2port TurboCap GbE board (4-lane PCIe) |
| Mgmt NICs | 2 built-in GbE copper ports |
|
|
The Shark Appliance Kit can be run on hardware that meets the requirements below. It will also need to be setup with a very specific disk configuration for the system disk and the Packet Recorder disk.
| Form Factor | 2U |
| Processors | 2 x Intel Nehalem Quad Core E5520 2.26Ghz |
| Memory | 12GB |
| DVD-ROM | 1 |
| File system | 500GB (7200 rpm) |
|
| Shark Packet Recorder Storage System | |
| RAID Controller | Hardware RAID level 0 (8-lane PCIe) |
| Storage | 8 x 1TB (SATAII, 7200 rpm) |
| Packet Capture | 2 x 2port TurboCap GbE board (4-lane PCIe) |
| Mgmt NICs | 2 built-in GbE copper ports |
|
|
The Shark Appliance Kit requires two disk configurations in each Shark Appliance. The first disk will be for the main file system and will contain the optimized Linux operating system, the Shark Appliance software, pcap trace files, view metrics, and indices for Job Traces.
The second disk is a RAID 0 array for the Shark Packet Recorder storage system for saving Job Traces. This storage system is optimized to provide high-speed writing to disk and fast access to arbitrary time intervals within a Job Trace.
The Shark Appliance Kit is available to customers who have either specific hardware requirements or vendors that are allowed and supported in their data centers. It is also available to customers who wish to reuse server hardware or are under budget constraints.
Shark Appliances are designed for placement at strategic points throughout your network that provide access to your mission-critical data. You need to use taps or configure span ports at these locations to ensure you have the visibility necessary for global monitoring and troubleshooting.
The Shark Appliance includes a “dump-to-disk” facility called the Shark Packet Recorder which uses a new approach for dealing with high-speed and/or long-duration traffic capture scenarios. CACE Technologies’ Packet Recorder is based on an optimized packet data store that eliminates the need for file rotation schemes.