Profitap

Profitap is a European (Netherlands-based) manufacturer specializing in deep network observability — full, packet-level visibility into network traffic. The company designs and manufactures a complete portfolio of devices that provide continuous, non-intrusive access to traffic: passive and active network TAPs (copper and fiber), advanced Network Packet Brokers, portable packet capture devices, and integrated traffic analysis probes. Profitap solutions give network and security teams the most reliable source of truth about the network — raw packet data — removing the guesswork from performance diagnostics and threat detection. Its products support compliance with regulations such as NIS2, and Profitap TAPs are recognized as a reliable data source in forensic and legal contexts.

Deploying Profitap solutions delivers organizations tangible benefits. TAPs provide lossless access to all traffic without interfering with the monitored link, and passive variants require no power and introduce no additional point of failure into the protected link. Network Packet Brokers filter traffic to deliver only relevant data to monitoring and security tools, direct it to the right tools (maximizing the utilization of costly probes and improving ROI), and mask sensitive data — account numbers, payment card details, or user credentials — supporting GDPR and HIPAA compliance. Detailed packet-level records enable forensic analysis and rapid root-cause identification of incidents.

MORE INFORMATION: https://www.profitap.com/ 

Description of technology

NPM - Network Performance Monitoring

Cloud TAP / vTAP - Solutions that extend visibility into virtual and cloud environments — VMware (vTAP) as well as Kubernetes, AWS EKS, and Azure. They capture and forward a copy of traffic to packet brokers or analysis tools without affecting MTU or network configuration, maintaining a unified view of the entire environment.

IOTA - A compact device combining TAP access with in-line packet capture and analysis in a single platform. It provides baseline traffic analysis, anomaly detection, and full forensic analysis on packet data. Available in EDGE (1G/10G) and CORE (10G/100G) variants, including a portable fly-away kit.

ProfiShark - Portable field packet capture devices that connect directly to a laptop via USB. They deliver full-duplex capture from 100M to 10G with hardware timestamping at 8 ns resolution. Ideal for field service engineers who need temporary monitoring without rack-mounted infrastructure.

Profitap Supervisor (centralized management) - A centralized management platform for hybrid environments with a web interface accessible from any system. It enables defining traffic rules across a connected fleet of packet brokers (traffic forwarding, aggregation, and replication between devices — Supervisor generates and deploys the required configuration itself), monitoring traffic statistics, updating firmware across multiple devices in a single operation, managing devices and groups, and reviewing events with filtering. The platform includes two modules: NPB CM — for managing packet brokers, and IOTA CM — for centrally managing IOTA probes.

Network Packet Broker

Aggregation TAP - combine traffic from multiple network links into a single monitoring port (many-to-one), conserving ports on analysis tools.

Booster - a high-density aggregation TAP that combines multiple links (e.g., 4 in-line or 8 SPAN 1G links) into a single 10G output without packet loss, and acts as a speed converter, bringing 10M/100M/1G speeds to tools that only support 10G and above.

Bypass TAP - provide a fail-safe mechanism for active in-line tools: in the event of a failure or power loss, they automatically bypass the tool, maintaining link continuity.

Copper / Fiber TAP - foundational TAPs for copper links (with “No Break” functionality that reduces failover time after a power loss) and fiber links (single-mode/multi-mode); passive variants are entirely unpowered.

Network Packet Broker - Devices placed between TAPs or SPAN ports and monitoring and security tools, adding a layer of intelligence to the monitoring architecture. Through many-to-many port mapping, they direct traffic to the appropriate tools. They offer advanced traffic-processing features: filtering (by VLAN, subnet, IP lists), packet deduplication, timestamping synchronized via PTP IEEE 1588 with nanosecond precision, aggregation, replication, packet slicing, L3/L4 load balancing, tunneling and de-tunneling (GRE, VXLAN, ERSPAN), data masking, and GTP IP filtering. All rules run in parallel without conflicting, which simplifies configuration. The series differ in their level of sophistication: – XX Series — high-density traffic aggregators providing aggregation, replication, advanced filtering, and load balancing. – X2 Series — next-generation packet brokers that add features such as packet slicing, GTP IP filtering, ERSPAN tunneling, and deduplication. – X3 Series — the latest generation, delivering full packet and flow visibility along with complex, advanced traffic processing.

Regeneration TAP - fiber TAPs (Dual/Quad LC) that deliver multiple copies of the traffic while splitting the link’s signal only once — critical for fiber, where every split weakens the optical signal.

Replication TAP - copper TAPs (Dual Output, Port Replicator) that replicate a single link’s traffic to multiple output ports when the same segment must be monitored simultaneously by several tools.

Secure TAP - feature tamper-evident protection for deployments requiring physical access controls.

Helpful files