Tracking network traffic across a few data centers is no longer the norm. Today's enterprise networks span hybrid cloud environments, virtual infrastructure, encrypted traffic flows, and edge deployments across multiple continents. Traditional monitoring tools weren't built for this complexity, creating visibility gaps that expose organizations to security threats and performance issues that cost millions in downtime and lost productivity.
The Tolly Group spoke with Christian Ferenz, CEO of Cubro, about how his company eliminates monitoring blind spots in modern, high-speed network environments.
From Distribution to Innovation
Ferenz started Cubro in 2003 as a distributor of measurement instrumentation. "Very soon, I recognised that the market needed more advanced and efficient solutions for network monitoring," Ferenz explains. "That realisation led me, together with a few business partners, to establish Cubro Acronet. We began by developing our own lines of Network TAPs and Packet Brokers, moving from distribution into innovation and design."
The company has grown into a global provider of network visibility solutions deployed across every continent. Today, Cubro serves some of the world's largest telecommunications operators and enterprises where network visibility is mission critical.
The Cost of Visibility Gaps
Legacy monitoring approaches create dangerous blind spots in modern networks. Traditional tools lack the scalability and flexibility to handle today's high-speed, virtualized, and encrypted environments. Organizations frequently lose visibility into east-west traffic within data centers, traffic across virtualized or cloud environments, and encrypted flows that now carry the majority of network traffic.
"These visibility gaps directly impact both security and performance," Ferenz notes. "From a security standpoint, blind spots create opportunities for malicious activity to go undetected, whether it's data exfiltration, lateral movement of threats, or misuse of applications. From a performance perspective, the lack of comprehensive visibility makes it harder to troubleshoot issues quickly, leading to prolonged downtime, reduced user experience, and higher operational costs."
The problem extends beyond simple lack of visibility. Many organizations mistakenly believe network monitoring begins and ends with SNMP statistics, log files, or flow data. While these sources provide useful high-level insights, they don't offer the depth needed to understand what's actually happening across modern, high-speed networks. Without full packet-level visibility, organizations often miss critical details that affect both performance and user experience.
Engineering for Wire-Speed Performance
Cubro's architecture addresses the challenge of capturing and processing traffic at multi-gigabit and terabit speeds without introducing latency or dropping packets. The solution relies on purpose-built Network Packet Broker solutions designed with high-performance hardware and intelligent software features to ensure lossless processing.
"Unlike legacy approaches that struggle under heavy loads, Cubro's packet brokers are engineered to handle line-rate traffic across all ports, applying features such as filtering, load balancing, replication, and aggregation without compromising performance," Ferenz explains. The architecture combines hardware acceleration with smart traffic management to eliminate bottlenecks and guarantee zero packet loss, ensuring organizations receive accurate, real-time insights even at the highest bandwidths.
Another common misunderstanding is that monitoring is only needed when something goes wrong. Proactive visibility is essential for preventing downtime, optimizing resources, and ensuring applications perform as expected. Waiting until problems arise often leads to costly troubleshooting and extended outages.
Flexible Deployment and Scalability
"The budget for comprehensive network visibility solutions really depends on the size and complexity of the infrastructure," Ferenz notes. "A small enterprise with a few critical monitoring points will have very different needs than a global telecom operator managing traffic at a terabit scale."
Organizations often assume network visibility requires a massive, one-time investment. Cubro's modular architecture allows organizations to start small, addressing their most critical blind spots first, and then expand step by step. The platform is designed for scalability, so customers can build out their visibility layer in a way that matches both their technical requirements and their budget. In most cases, the cost of visibility is far outweighed by the cost of outages or undetected issues.
Cubro offers flexible deployment options ranging from entry-level TAPs and aggregation devices to advanced, modular packet broker platforms capable of scaling to multi-terabit environments. Customers can start with targeted deployments to solve specific visibility challenges and then expand gradually, with investments made today continuing to deliver value as the network evolves.
Measurable Impact
When organizations deploy Cubro's visibility solutions, they typically see significant reductions in Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). "Because our packet brokers and probes deliver the exact traffic needed for analysis, customers report cutting troubleshooting times from days or hours down to minutes," Ferenz explains.
On the security side, faster access to complete and accurate traffic data enables quicker incident detection and response. By eliminating blind spots, Cubro ensures that monitoring and security tools receive high-quality, real-time data, which directly reduces the risk of undetected threats and shortens investigation cycles.
From a network optimization perspective, organizations often see improved utilization of existing monitoring tools as traffic is filtered, deduplicated, and balanced intelligently. This not only extends the lifespan of expensive monitoring tools but also lowers operational costs.
Serving Critical Industries
Cubro's product portfolio is built around delivering complete network visibility. At the foundation are Network TAPs that provide lossless access to live traffic. Advanced Network Packet Brokers aggregate, filter, and optimize that traffic, ensuring monitoring and security tools receive the correct data in the proper format. Bypass solutions guarantee the resilience of inline security appliances, while probes and analytics platforms provide deep insights into application and user experience.
The company serves a broad spectrum of industries. Telecommunications providers rely on Cubro for large-scale visibility to support 4G, 5G, and fixed-line services. Enterprises across finance, government, healthcare, and manufacturing utilize Cubro to ensure service quality, compliance, and operational efficiency. These deployments span every continent, trusted by organizations where downtime or data loss is not an option.
Looking Forward
Cubro's product roadmap is driven by changes in network technology and evolving customer needs. The company continuously develops solutions that address current network challenges while supporting future high-speed, hybrid, and cloud environments. The goal is ensuring organizations have complete, real-time visibility that enables them to monitor, optimize, and scale their networks confidently.
As networks continue expanding into new domains and traffic speeds increase, organizations that invest in comprehensive visibility infrastructure will gain significant advantages over those constrained by legacy monitoring limitations. The question isn't whether modern visibility solutions will become necessary, but how quickly organizations can implement them before blind spots lead to costly security incidents or performance failures.
Key Takeaways
Legacy monitoring tools create dangerous blind spots in east-west traffic, virtualized environments, and encrypted flows
Purpose-built packet brokers can process multi-gigabit and terabit traffic at line rate without packet loss or latency
Modular architectures allow organizations to start small and scale visibility infrastructure incrementally
Comprehensive visibility reduces Mean Time to Resolution from hours to minutes
Proactive monitoring prevents issues rather than simply detecting them after they occur
Network visibility investments pay for themselves by preventing costly downtime and extending monitoring tool lifespans
Learn More
Visit Cubro's website for detailed information about their network visibility solutions: https://www.cubro.com/en/