Page 66 - Cyber Warnings

This flexibility is a tremendous feature for the service providers but further complicates the
intercept mission.

Big Data

Once the architecture of the target network has been discovered, the task of processing the
traffic begins. However, as DWDM networks approach terabit speeds, this can translate into an
untenable amount of data to process.

The vast majority of this ‘Big Data’ on the DWDM fiber link is typically not of immediate interest
to government agencies and hence the ability to narrow the scope of data being forwarded to
costly network analytic tools for deep packet inspection can be extremely beneficial.

Traditional Solutions

Monitoring a DWDM network typically requires the use of many pieces of standard transport and
test equipment such as protocol analyzers, spectrum analyzers, routers and ROADMs.

The precise components can be difficult to identify but are typically sufficient to access, discover
and handle the big data found on any individual wavelength as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Traditional DWDM intercept solutions require combining many difference pieces of
costly transport and test equipment

66 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – April 2017 Edition
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