Network and cybersecurity teams face new challenges regarding incident analysis as remote and hybrid work environments become the norm. Troubleshooting network issues, ensuring security, and maintaining performance in a distributed work environment requires a different approach than when teams were co-located. Packet analysis remains crucial for diagnosing problems, but working remotely can make this process more complex.
Here are three tips to help your team get the most out of the critical resource that is packet data, no matter where they are located.
One of the biggest hurdles for remote teams is ensuring that everyone has quick, secure access to packet captures. When packet capture files are stored locally or shared via email, it slows down collaboration, creates confusion over which file is the most up-to-date, and poses big security risks. Instead, choose a centralized, cloud-based platform for storing your packet captures.
With centralized storage, your entire team can access packet data instantly from anywhere without worrying about managing multiple copies or dealing with cumbersome file transfers. This speeds up the process of accessing files and keeps your data secure.
For remote teams, collaboration is key to quickly resolving network problems. Tools that allow multiple team members to work on the same packet capture simultaneously are essential for efficient troubleshooting. Ideally, your packet capture solution should allow team members to add comments, highlight specific packets, and share insights in real-time.
Collaboration features like annotation and commenting help ensure that everyone is contributing to the analysis process, and it allows for faster decision-making. Remote collaboration eliminates the need for long email threads and delayed responses, enabling your team to troubleshoot as effectively as they would in person.
For IT and cybersecurity, a remote team isn’t just separated from each other - they are also separated from their network capture data sources. This is particularly true in the case of software-defined networks or cloud-based data centers, where storage and compute resources are often logically separate from network infrastructure.
Use tools that have packet capture upload in mind as part of their design, whether that’s a firewall that creates pcaps of triggered events that can send them to a centralized system or the use of pcaps on cloud network interfaces like AWS VPC traffic mirroring. When collecting these captures, use a system that has an API designed explicitly for packet capture intake, filtering, and processing.
Managing packet capture and analysis in a remote-first world requires specialized tools and approaches that enable distributed teams to collaborate effectively. You'll easily tackle network and security issues by centralizing your packet data, enabling real-time collaboration, and keeping distributed IT in mind.
As a cloud-based packet capture analysis platform, CloudShark Enterprise enables teams to work together seamlessly, no matter where they are located. With powerful collaboration tools, robust API, and a repository built specifically for packet captures, CloudShark Enterprise makes remote packet analysis easier and more efficient for network engineers around the world.
