Did You Know? Packet Data is Essential for Comprehensive Network Observability and Security
Did you know that tools like Dynatrace, DataDog, and Splunk provide powerful insights — but they don’t provide all the critical visibility for your network?
These tools excel at tracking metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT), offering insights into application performance, system errors, and correlated events. However, they do not have access to a crucial data source — packet data, the ultimate source of truth for network visibility.
Flow-based tools such as Viavi, SolarWinds, and Kentik provide helpful summaries of data movement between network nodes. And while valuable for bandwidth monitoring and volumetric insights, flow tools lack the precision required for in-depth troubleshooting and security investigations.
Why Packet Data Matters
Packet data reveals the ‘what’ and the 'why' behind network anomalies, security threats, and performance issues that MELT data and flow data often miss.
• Flow data is generally sampled or even missing entirely in oversubscribed network environments, creating blind spots.
• Log data may be incomplete or manipulated, limiting its usefulness during security investigations.
• Trace data helps identify system errors, application bottlenecks, and API dependencies, but is insufficient for diagnosing many network or security issues alone.
For example: One cPacket customer had users failing to log in to their virtual desktops during a recurring period in the mornings. Flow data showed no issues. By using cPacket’s Packet Capture (cStor®), they discovered a 300ms latency increase caused by a Cisco WAN acceleration device that was intended to be transparent. Packet data enabled them to identify the problem in less than an hour — without it, the issue could have dragged on for weeks.
In another case, a customer encountered intermittent issues in their cloud environment with a third-party partner. By deploying cPacket’s Packet Capture (cStor®), they identified an MTU mismatch between the third-party gateway and the AWS gateway, causing packet drops due to additional encapsulation. Without packet capture data, they couldn't escalate the issue with AWS or resolve it for several days.
We call these issues 'unknown-unknowns' — problems caused by software and configuration issues that developers didn’t anticipate. Since no logs, traces, or metrics were designed to identify these issues, users are often left with a trial-and-error approach, consuming excessive time and resources.
The Solution — Combining Packet Data with MELT Data
The best strategy isn’t choosing between MELT data and packet data — it’s combining them.
• Flow tools provide broad network visibility for identifying general patterns.
• Log and trace data highlight system activities and application behaviors.
• Packet data delivers the detailed truth, critical for diagnosing root causes, investigating security threats, and ensuring no critical data is overlooked.
By integrating cPacket’s packet data solutions alongside your MELT tools, you gain a powerful advantage — zero blind spots, reduced Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), and complete accountability for every packet on your network.
