Passive Data Collection
Collecting clickstream data can quickly become very costly for busy websites because of the computing, storage,
and data management requirements. With Metronome Capture, you can collect all your clickstream data at one central location, even
with multiple servers and domains. Using one data capture point, you eliminate the costly back-end work of splicing together and
cleaning multiple web logs.
Metronome Capture uses high-quality passive network taps to promiscuously collect packets. Its multi-threaded architecture distributes work evenly across multiple processors, allowing a single system to scale to the full line speed of both copper and gigabit fiber networks. Metronome Capture systems use a Linux-based operating system for the best combination of reliability and cost-effectiveness.
For Metronome Capture implementation, a network tap is typically inserted between your load-balancing switch and an edge router. This tap maintains a hard-wired connection between the two devices so that the flow of traffic is not delayed and any failure of the tap (i.e., due to a power loss) will not cause a network outage. Since the tap prevents routing into Metronome Capture, it does not introduce a security risk.
Regeneration taps can be used to send data simultaneously to multiple Metronome Capture systems. Metronome Capture also supports the use of spanning ports and repeating hubs.