TAPs

“Physical and virtual traffic access for pervasive visibility.”

What are NETSCOUT TAPs?

NETSCOUT’s Test Access Points (TAPs) are the foundation of visibility fabrics, enabling lossless access to traffic for monitoring, observability, and security.
They guarantee 100% packet fidelity for analysis tools, while maintaining fail-safe operation on production links.
In addition to physical TAPs, NETSCOUT also offers vTAPs to capture traffic inside virtualized and cloud environments, ensuring end-to-end observability.

Types of NETSCOUT TAPs

Copper TAPs

• Support 1G copper Ethernet links.
• Provide full-duplex monitoring with no packet loss.
• Ideal for legacy environments and enterprise LANs.

Optical TAPs

• Available for multimode and single-mode fiber (1G/10G/40G/100G).
• Options include passive optical TAPs (no power required) for maximum reliability.
• Used in data centers and high-speed backbone links.

High-Density Modular TAPs

• Chassis supporting multiple TAP blades.
• Enable scalable deployment in enterprise and carrier networks.
• Reduce footprint by consolidating multiple TAPs into a single frame.

Bypass TAPs

• Designed for inline security appliances (firewalls, IDS/IPS, DLP).
• Provide fail-safe bypass in case of tool failure or maintenance.
• Maintain traffic continuity with heartbeat-based failover.

Aggregation TAPs

• Combine multiple low-utilization links into fewer monitoring outputs.
• Simplify tool connectivity when port availability is limited.
• Often used before Packet Flow Switches for initial aggregation.

Virtual TAPs (vTAPs)

• Software agents deployed inside hypervisors (VMware, KVM) or cloud instances (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Capture east-west and north-south traffic in virtualized environments.
• Forward traffic to vSTREAM probes or PFS for Smart Data generation.
• Provide visibility where physical TAPs cannot be deployed (cloud workloads, NFV).

Benefits for the Client

• End-to-end visibility – from physical backbone links to cloud workloads.
  
• Lossless fidelity – 100% packet copy, no filtering or drops.
  
• Fail-safe operation – passive optical and bypass TAPs ensure resiliency.
  
• Scalable design – modular chassis for dense environments.
  Hybrid observability – vTAPs extend visibility into virtualized and cloud domains.

Why NETSCOUT TAPs are Different ?

• Comprehensive portfolio – copper, optical, modular, bypass, and virtual TAPs.
  
• Carrier-grade reliability – trusted in Tier-1 operator backbones.
• Integrated fabric – designed to work seamlessly with PFS, nDA, and Smart Data probes.
• Cloud-ready – vTAPs ensure hybrid and multi-cloud visibility.

Typical Use Cases

• Deploy optical TAPs on high-speed backbone links (10/40/100G).
• Use copper TAPs for enterprise LAN visibility.
• Deploy bypass TAPs inline with security appliances for resilience.
• Consolidate monitoring with aggregation TAPs.
• Extend visibility to cloud workloads with vTAPs + vSTREAM probes.