Keysight network packet brokers gain AI-powered features

The technology has matured considerably since then. Over the last five years, Singh said that most of Keysight’s NPB customers are global Fortune 500 organizations that have large network visibility practices. Meaning they deploy a lot of packet brokers with capabilities ranging anywhere from one gigabit networking at the edge, all the way to 100 gigabit.

Today’s environments are even more demanding, and Keysight recently introduced 400 gigabit packet brokers to accommodate the explosive growth in network traffic. As network speeds have increased, the focus has shifted beyond just providing raw packet data to also extracting valuable metadata. 

“The volume of traffic is huge now,” Singh said. “So a lot of our design and product releases are really focused on making sure nothing is missing in the SOC in terms of packet access and that we work both on the packet side and metadata side.”

Understanding Keysight’s AI stack

Keysight’s announcement introduces several interconnected technologies that work together to deliver enhanced security capabilities.

The AI Stack serves as an umbrella framework for AI-related features implemented in Keysight’s packet brokers. Meanwhile, AI Insight Broker refers to the packet brokers with these AI capabilities built-in. The final piece of the puzzle is AppFusion, which represents a separate but complementary capability allowing third-party applications, including AI applications, to run inside their packet brokers.

“We’ve worked to accelerate that stack, and that’s a new capability in the packet broker that kind of speaks to us, leaning on our technology partners that do a lot of network-derived intelligence, even without AI or with AI, to run directly inside our packet broker,” Singh explained.