Packet Forwarder Overview

The Packet Forwarder is used to capture and forward hits to a cloud-based DNCA that is operating on a virtual machine.

The DNCA processes the hits that are forwarded by the Packet Forwarder.

The Packet Forwarder software is included with the DNCA and consists of a transmitter and a receiver component. The transmitter captures TCP packets and forwards them to the designated receiver. The receiver can be configured to capture data that is submitted from a specified transmitter. You can configure multiple transmitter instances to send data to a centralized DNCA. Each transmitter instance must connect to an individual receiver instance on the DNCA.

Note: Transmitter instances and a receiver instances cannot share the same listening port.

The Packet Forwarder provides the following functionality:

  • Replaces the default TCP packet sniffer component of the DNCA with a network socket listener
  • Directs traffic into an internal DNCA instance. The transmitter points to a centralized DNCA instance in the cloud and delivers packets to the receiver through a network connection.
  • TCP packets are captured by sniffing the designated port.

The Packet Forwarder components can be deployed in a public or private cloud to manage capture and forwarding of TCP packets for processing by a cloud-based Unica Discover installation.