Giant 663 100G Network Visibility Upgrade for Hybrid Data Center

Highlights

Deployment of a centralized 100G network visibility architecture using Giant 663 Network Packet Broker to eliminate blind spots across a hybrid data center environment.

Giant 663 aggregates all 100G inter-site links into a single monitoring point, enabling full East-West traffic visibility and optimized AI-driven threat detection.

Key Stats

• 32 × 100G QSFP28 interfaces deployed via Giant 663

• 4 core data center sites connected through centralized traffic aggregation

• Visibility increased from 25% to over 95% of lateral traffic

• 100G VXLAN and GRE traffic decapsulation enabled

• Single-point traffic delivery to AI-based NDR platform

Overview

Enterprise network resilience and cybersecurity are critical to business continuity. Limited visibility into lateral East-West traffic can expose organizations to undetected threats, operational risks, and costly downtime.

Our client, a large-scale transportation and warehousing enterprise based in Canada, operates multiple regional data centers supporting hybrid cloud applications, warehouse automation systems, and real-time tracking platforms.

As digital operations expanded, the IT team faced increasing challenges monitoring network traffic across four interconnected data centers. Their environment included:

• 100G inter-data-center backbone links

• VMware-based private cloud clusters

• Hybrid cloud workloads

• Multi-vendor switching infrastructure

However, they lacked centralized visibility into internal traffic flows and required an intelligent traffic aggregation platform to integrate with their AI-driven Network Detection and Response (NDR) system.

Challenges

Despite strong perimeter security, the client encountered several critical issues:

1. Limited East-West Traffic Visibility

Only partial visibility into lateral traffic between internal devices and virtualized environments.

2. No Central Traffic Aggregation Point

Over 120 access switches distributed across multiple facilities made SPAN configuration complex and inefficient.

3. High SIEM Monitoring Overhead

Security teams were overwhelmed by excessive log-based alerts without contextual packet-level intelligence.

4. VXLAN and GRE Tunnel Complexity

Encapsulated traffic required proper decapsulation before feeding into monitoring tools.

Solutions

With extensive experience in multi-vendor network integration and traffic visibility architecture, Network-Switch.com designed a centralized 100G packet broker solution.

1. Deployment of Giant 663 100G Network Packet Broker

The Giant 663 provides:

• 32 × 40G/100G QSFP28 interfaces

• Full-duplex line-speed processing without packet loss

• 4×10G/25G breakout support

• Traffic aggregation, replication, and load balancing

• GTP and GRE tunnel traffic steering

• Multi-device cascading capability

All 100G inter-site backbone links were terminated into the Giant 663, creating a single, centralized traffic acquisition and distribution point.

2. Intelligent Traffic Processing

Using Giant 663 advanced capabilities:

• Full traffic aggregation from multiple core links

• Five-tuple packet classification

• Traffic replication for simultaneous security and performance analysis

• Tunnel decapsulation for VXLAN/GRE traffic

This ensured that only optimized and relevant traffic streams were forwarded to the NDR platform.

3. Single-Point Monitoring Architecture

Instead of deploying multiple TAP devices across facilities, all mirrored traffic was routed into the Giant 663.

Benefits:

• Simplified topology

• Reduced hardware footprint

• Lower operational complexity

• Clean, scalable monitoring architecture

4. Multi-Vendor Integration

As a global multi-brand distributor, Network-Switch.com integrated:

• Existing Cisco core switches

• VMware vSAN clusters

• Third-party AI NDR solution

• 100G optical modules and fiber connectivity

Our certified engineers (CCIE, HCIE-level expertise) ensured end-to-end compatibility and optimized configuration across all vendors.

Results

Following deployment, NorthBridge Logistics achieved:

✔ Over 95% Visibility into East-West Traffic

Complete monitoring of internal lateral traffic across hybrid environments.

✔ Centralized 100G Traffic Aggregation

All backbone links unified into one intelligent packet broker.

✔ Reduced Security Workload

AI-driven detection received optimized traffic streams, reducing alert fatigue.

✔ Zero Packet Loss at Line Speed

Full-duplex 100G processing ensured uninterrupted performance.

✔ Improved Business Continuity

Real-time visibility reduced threat detection latency and minimized operational risk.