BreakingPoint LiveLook: Hitting the Bullseye with UI Design
Dennis had another interesting interview this week, this time with James Magera about designing the user interface for the BreakingPoint testing solutions and his national ranking in Olympic-style archery. Pretty cool stuff; the UI and the archery.
Thanks for all the suggestions on who to film and keep them coming and if you prefer you can ping us on Twitter.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Talking Customer Support
Caught up with Greg Griffith here at BreakingPoint and chatted with him about his role in support and what that entails. If you are a BreakingPoint user you may have already worked with Greg to help you with our testing solutions. Greg also chatted with us about his interests outside of providing support, including lending his film making skills to help us produce our test methodologies and his latest hobby...model rocketry.
Botnet Simulation
The other day I asked Dennis about botnet simulation and he started to demonstrate it, so we figured we would film a screencast. We ended up reviewing how to simulate a botnet attack using our testing tools. The screencast shows you how to combine application traffic and strike attacks to realistically simulate a botnet attack including the use of strikes such as denial of service and backdoor attacks using IRC. Enjoy:
BreakingPoint Test Methodology for DPI Released
As we discussed last week BreakingPoint has created a detailed test methodology and video series that helps network engineers to test the DPI features of content-aware network devices. Just like we did with the IPS test methodology, you can view the videos and download the full methodology for your own use. DPI is certainly in the news a lot, and much of the coverage focuses on privacy concerns and P2P bandwidth shaping.
Here again is the intro video, than make your way over to our DPI Test Methodology and let us know what you think.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Engaging the Community
Today I decided to talk to Kyle our Director of Marketing at BreakingPoint. Kyle just joined the company a few months back and I really enjoy giving him a hard time for some unknown reason. We knew when we were starting BreakingPoint we wanted to market via the 'net and not traditional sources like magazines and tradeshows. Not to say we won't do those sorts of things, it was just that we wanted to be more about being online.
The online test methodologies, the screencasts, the large amount of product data available online, even this blog are examples of us focused on our communication over the 'net rather then traditional channels.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: IETF, Outdated RFCs and Dublin
Yesterday BreakingPoint LiveLook found Mike Hamilton back from his recent trip from Dublin where he took part in the recent IETF meetings. I wish I had gone along for the ride, and not simply to enjoy some pints in the Temple Bar area, but the discussions around outdated RFCs (request for comments). Mike talks in the video about how far behind some of them are when it comes to content-aware and DPI functionality.
Deep Packet Inspection Testing Webinar
As we've been talking about here on the blog and on Twitter, today was the first in a series of webinar's being hosted by NSS Labs on the topic of deep packet inspection (DPI). Dennis Cox, BreakingPoint's CTO, joined the call and had several slides that provided a good overview for what DPI encompasses and the different elements one must recognize when testing for DPI functionality. I thought I would provide the slides Dennis discussed on the webinar and when the archived webinar is available I'll provide you the link.
Deep Packet Inspection is All the Rage
Quick post on some interesting deep packet related information:
- NSS Labs will be kicking off their DPI Webinar Series tomorrow, from what I hear there will be a really good crowd on the line, registration is here. UPDATE: Here's the link to our Deep Packet Inspection Testing slides from the Webinar.
- Miercom announced results of their test of Solera Networks' Deep Packet Capture device. You'll see in the report some of their use of BreakingPoint for network equipment testing. Miercom actually has an easy way to search through their results reports, so take a look.
- Speaking of BreakingPoint and deep packet, very soon we are going to be putting out our latest test methodology, this time looking at deep packet inspection (DPI). Here is an intro video:
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Testing with Real Application Traffic
A little bit of fun on this Friday afternoon...this morning we showed you Todd Manning's look at creating strikes for network equipment testing, well here is Tod Beardsley talking about how he creates the application protocols that folks use in order to properly test network equipment. Tod, after a little prompting, tells us how he creates the protocols and the ActiveX Strike.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Security Strikes & Patch Tuesday
Our BreakingPoint LiveLook on Monday garnered some interesting thoughts, one left in the comments section asked for a video of the security research team on Patch Tuesday. Instead of waiting till next Tuesday we grabbed the camera and Dennis asked Todd Manning to tell us what it is like on Patch Tuesday and dive into what he does to create the security strikes used in our network equipment testing solution. Enjoy...
Now be sure to vote on Todd's inquiry at the end of the video. Either comment directly on the video (press +) or in the comments section.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Under the Hood
We continue taking a look at some of the "behind the scenes" activities here at BreakingPoint, for your viewing pleasure. Yesterday we had Dennis show us under the hood of our network equipment testing solution...from processor to packaging. Take a look and if you have any questions let us know, you can comment directly on the video and of course in the blog comment section.
Reminder: What Do You Think
We got a tremendous response to our website survey I posted a few weeks ago. The plan is to close the survey on August 8th, giving you a few more days. Our hope is to get your reactions and thoughts to our website and online community using 9 survey questions. For your trouble you will be entered into a drawing to receive an iPod Touch or one of several $25 gift certificates to Amazon.com.
Thank you to those of you who have already submitted, your input has been extremely helpful.
BreakingPoint LiveLook: Enter the Heat Chamber
This is where you can come to see what is going on inside of BreakingPoint. We have our handy cameras and we are sitting down with some of the folks to talk about what they are currently working on, the network testing market and much more.
August 4, 2008: Hardware Engineer Greg Singleton discusses "The Heat Chamber":