Virtualization has gone mainstream, with technology companies and their customers increasingly moving system computing into virtual servers. By consolidating computing into fewer physical devices, this move to virtualization provides dramatic savings while increasing availability and flexibility.

Virtual systems communicate over virtual networks as well as over physical networks. This opens up gaps in traditional physical network analysis and security. Administrators of virtual systems need purpose-built tools capable of seeing and analyzing virtual network traffic in order to troubleshoot and audit their systems.