The Smart Route To Visibility

Alfa Banking Group Enhances and Centralizes

Network Performance Monitoring with Gigamon
// Case Study

With the Gigamon solution, were able to see all of the network traffic using just one set of monitoring tools, which is a
tremendous benefit for us
// Anton Nastasyuk, DEPUTY HEAD OF IT DIVISION, ALFA BANKING GROUP

Challenge
Faced with too many monitoring tools
at its multiple data centers,
Alfa Banking Group decided it was time
to centralize, streamline and extend the
Founded in 1990, Alfa Banking Group offers a wide range of products and operates in

capabilities of one set of tools using a

all sectors of the financial market. Headquartered in Moscow, with 444 offices across

traffic visibility solution.

Russia and abroad, Alfa Banking Group employs approximately 17,000 people and has
maintained its position as the top Russian private bank by total assets, total equity, and

Solution

customer accounts, serving over 48,000 corporate customers and 5.8 million

A Gigamon Visibility Fabric solution

retail clients.

based on the GigaVUE-420 fabric node,

Dealing with Port Shortage

With several data centers located throughout Russia requiring monitoring tools, the
Alfa Banking Groups information technology team determined that it would be more
cost-effective and efficient to capitalize on one solution rather than deploy duplicate

which aggregates, filters and replicates

traffic flows across the network to the
companys centralized monitoring and
analysis tools.

tools at each. The organization needed a traffic visibility solution that would allow it to

Benefits

share these tools effectively and extend the capabilities of each monitoring device. After

Mirror/SPAN port contention is no

careful evaluation, Alfa Banking Group selected a traffic visibility solution from Gigamon,

longer an issue with more than

which allowed them to deploy a single monitoring center with the ability to see and

enough ports for full application and

capture traffic from all of its customer locations.

network performance scrutiny.

Gigamon helped the organization configure the optimal solution and eventually provided

Enhanced value of Alfa Banking

a Visibility Fabric built on the GigaVUE-420 fabric node. Each data center was equipped

Groups monitoring and analysis tools

with a single GigaVUE-420 fabric node with sufficient interfaces and transceivers.

by adding a deeper level of visibility

The GigaVUE-420 supports 10/100/1000 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet and aggregates,

into all network traffic.

filters and replicates traffic flows across Alfa Banking Groups multiple monitoring
tools. The GigaVUE systems give the organization pervasive network visibility, enabling

Issues can be identified quickly

aggregation and filtering of incoming data. This end-to-end network visibility is crucial

so problems can be solved faster,

to ensure network uptime and customer satisfaction.

reducing network management time

and costs.

The Right Traffic to the Right Tool

Alfa Banking Groups traffic is collected from various network sources at each location,
while the Gigamon patented Flow Mapping technology delivers it to a central location
for monitoring. Intelligent Flow Mapping technology on the GigaVUE fabric nodes

Copyright 2013 Gigamon LLC. All rights reserved.

The Smart Route To Visibility

Alfa Banking Group Enhances and Centralizes

Network Performance Monitoring with Gigamon
// Case Study

offers superior traffic visibility. Flow Mapping packet distribution

The Right Solution

starts with network ports and ends with tool ports, and is

With the Gigamon solution, Alfa Banking Groups network

used to include or exclude traffic on connections. The Alfa

monitoring team is fully equipped and prepared with a traffic

Banking Group IT team can decide which type of traffic should

visibility environment. The team has been relieved of the burden

be forwarded, where it should be sent, and how it should be

of performing complex SPAN and mirroring port functions, which

handled once it arrives, giving full control.

were insufficient. In addition, all traffic visibility tasks are now

Traffic can be included or excluded based on DSCP assured

performed on the dedicated Gigamon Visibility Fabric in real

forwarding values, MAC addresses, IPv4/IPv6 addresses,

time rather than run during maintenance hours, overnight,

application port numbers, VLAN IDs, protocols, etc. Applying

or during network downtime.

maps to data ensures that each tool sees only the traffic that
best suits its individual strengths and nothing else.
We appreciate being able to decide which traffic to

The Gigamon solution is easy to manage and adapt, and

teaching others to use the system is also very intuitive,
which is important. Furthermore, its important to us that

forward based on specified parameters. The Flow Mapping

the solution was deployed and has worked as promised

technology allows us to take full advantage of our

since we installed it without any issues.

monitoring tools and get the information we need to ensure

// Anton Nastasyuk, Deputy Head of IT Division, Alfa Banking Group

our network is running smoothly and efficiently.

// Anton Nastasyuk, Deputy Head of IT Division, Alfa Banking Group

The GigaVUE-420 fabric node supports 10/100/1000 and 10

Gigabit Ethernet. Modifications to traffic can be made out-of-

By utilizing Gigamon Flow Mapping technology, Alfa Banking

band and tools may be added at any hour, without configuration

Groups IT team has significantly reduced site-to-site

management review, and without affecting the production

traffic levels to their monitoring tools on its 10Gb links. The

network.

distributed architecture of the Gigamon Visibility Fabric allows

the organization to achieve full traffic visibility within its IT
infrastructure, delivering a copy of traffic data to any destination,
anywhere in the network for monitoring and evaluation. It also
allows for the creation of a redundant Monitoring Center at an
alternative location. This takes advantage of the organizations
current monitoring tools, centralizing them, and extending their
capabilities, which reduces costs and ensures Alfa Banking
Group is capitalizing on its investment. Monitoring tools are
being utilized efficiently to their fullest potential by providing
them only with the traffic flows they need.

Copyright 2013 Gigamon LLC. All rights reserved.

The Smart Route To Visibility

Alfa Banking Group Enhances and Centralizes

Network Performance Monitoring with Gigamon
// Case Study

Figure A: Centralising monitoring tools after implementing GigaVUE, a Gigamon Visibility Fabric Architecture

About Gigamon
Gigamon provides an intelligent Visibility Fabric architecture
to enable the management of increasingly complex networks
Gigamon technology empowers infrastructure architects,
managers and operators with pervasive visibility and control of
traffic across both physical and virtual environments without
affecting the performance or stability of the production network.
Through patented technologies, centralized management
and a portfolio of high availability and high density fabric
nodes, network traffic is intelligently delivered to management,
monitoring and security systems. Gigamon solutions have been
deployed globally across enterprise, data centers and service
providers, including over half of the Fortune 100 and many
government and federal agencies.
For more information about our Gigamon products visit:
www.gigamon.com

2013 Gigamon. All rights reserved. Gigamon and the Gigamon logo are trademarks of Gigamon in the United States and/or other countries. Gigamon trademarks can be found at
www.gigamon.com/legal-trademarks. All other trademarks are the trademarks of their respective owners. Gigamon reserves the right to change, modify, transfer, or otherwise revise this publication without notice.
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