THE STORY SO FAR

“After some considered thinking and research I decided to develop my own network recorder, hence The Packet Company was born .....”
— Dr Andrew Thomson

From the outset, the Packet Company's focus has been to create top-quality solutions to some of the common problems that network and test engineers encounter. In doing so, we have provided our customers with a complementary mix of consultancy, products and bespoke features. A key part of this has been to make products that are open and flexible; this allows users to enhance and extend them, reconfigure them and integrate them with other systems. And it provides a high degree of future-proofing too.

PacketRAID is our first official product - a multi-port, multi-format, multi-rate signal recorder for capturing Ethernet or SDH. It's incredibly flexible, both in the range of signal types and speeds that it can capture and replay, but also the platform itself. We are equally proud of the User Interface we have built. Not only is it beautiful, but it provides our users with an intuitive, informative and easy to use graphical environment - we're understandably very proud of what we have achieved.

 
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MEET Our Team

The Packet Company

 
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dr andrew thomson

Founder and Managing Director

Andrew founded the Company in 2012, after spending most of the previous decade working as a Lead Engineer specialising in network monitoring and traffic analysis.  With over 20 years experience in designing complex systems he thought it was the right time to venture out by himself.

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andy heal

Access Technologies Specialist

Andy has spent the past 30 years leading and developing specialist technical teams delivering new leading edge capabilities into UK Government Security.   Through this work he has built up a vast knowledge and unrivalled list of contacts in this ever evolving environment.

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andy lovell

Capability Delivery Manager

Andy brings with him over 35 years of experience across a wide variety of engineering sectors.  His varied role is enabling the company to further develop it’s marketing, sales, and commercial offerings as well as bringing an enhanced level of professionalism to our technical deliveries. 

 
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ALEX DULLER

Software Engineer

Alex graduated from Cardiff University with a 1st class honours degree in Computer Science. He now spends a large part of his time developing the code for our PacketRAID recorders.  His most recent work has been on our new PacketDIODE product.

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JON MADDOCKS

Solutions Architect

Jon has a wealth of knowledge in telecoms signals and protocols having spent his formative years working in telecommunication analytics.  He has recently been working on the development of RawProc our new analytic tool.

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“READ ALL ABOUT IT”

Please have a look at some of our latest articles.

 

RACE TO ZERO

We are really pleased to announce that we have joined the Race To Zero global campaign. Where we aim to make the planet more healthy, resilient and sustainable.

The target is to take immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030 and deliver a healthier, fairer zero carbon world in time. We will start taking these positive actions over the forthcoming months.

Ensuring that the Packet Company takes its responsibility in the global drive to reduce emissions and energy consumption to make the world a much better environment to live in.

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VIVACE COMMUNITY MEMBER

Innova Engineering (The Packet Company) is part of the Vivace community, providing expertise and capabilities to the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) which is mission-led innovation unit within the Home Office’s Homeland Security Group. 

SUPPORTING THE ARMED FORCES

The Packet Company is committed to supporting our armed forces, and therefore a very proud to announce that we have recently signed the Armed Forces Covenant. This covenant is based on the two key principles:

  • No member of the armed forces community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen.

  • In some circumstances special treatment may be appropriate, especially for the injured or bereaved.

“We have along standing history of working with and alongside the military, and are proud to continue supporting them.”

A SHORT FILM ABOUT OUR NEW OFFICE

Have a look at our short cartoon opposite which shows some of the key facilities of our new office at Elmbridge Court.

Enjoy …..

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PACKETRAID VERSION 3.0 RELEASED

Our development and test teams have been working hard throughout the Summer and early Autumn to bring us the latest version of the PacketRAID software suite.  Version 3.0 now provides a number of new and enhanced features:

  • Full capture and replay up to 40Gb/s (all packet sizes)

  • Additional recording types: RAW / ERF / PCAP

  • Moloch integration (for deeper analysis)

  • Low order SDH recording, analysis & playback

  • OTU record & analysis capability

  • Replay repeat

  • Fully 'built in' online documentation

  • Enhancements to the: User Interface (UI), Fine Grained Security, and also Improved Compliance & Validation

WE HAVE MOVED !

In late February 2019 we said goodbye to our temporary offices.  Friday 1st March saw us move into a fully refurbished office space at Elmbridge Court near Gloucester. We are now conveniently located mid-way between Gloucester and Cheltenham, and within 2 minutes of Junction 11 of the M5 providing very easy access to all of our visitors.  

Work will soon be commencing on the office fit-out to meet our specific needs, we will be adding; a new meeting room, lab & build area, and also extending the kitchen area. The new spacious office looks absolutely amazing, and we can't wait to welcome both old and new customers. 

So please don't hesitate to give us a call to arrange a visit.

Call us on: (UK) 0844 310 3330 or (INTL) +44 (0)1635 576626

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CATCH THE SPRING 2019 NEWSLETTER

The NEW Packet Company newsletter intriguingly titled the Packet Generation is set to be launched in early Spring 2019. This is set to be the first edition of our regular quarterly bulletins. Having undertaken some research we have decided to go to a paper based format, a lot of people we’ve spoken to have said they much prefer something physical to browse through. Often electronic newsletters and similar digital format papers just seem to get lost amongst the multitude of emails we seem to receive nowadays.

It’s aimed to be both a light hearted yet informative read. Bringing you: news features, technical articles, advice & guidance, as well as providing an insight into some of the things that go on behind the scenes at The Packet Company. Plus we will also be running a competition within each edition, with a fantastic prize to be won each time.

If you would like a copy, and have yet to receive one, please call us on: (UK) 0844 310 3330 or (INTL) +44 (0)1635 576626 or alternatively email at enquiries@packet.company.

OUR NEW WEBSITE GOES LIVE

The last 6 months has been a pretty busy at The Packet Company.  Alongside the development work of Version 3.0 of PacketRAID, the planning of our move into Elmbridge Court, and creating our first Packet Generation newsletter of 2018/19, we have also produced this new and improved website.

Not only is it now packed with much more information than the previous version, it also features new and improved navigation plus a whole load of new content for you.

The new website launched in Spring 2019. So if you’re reading this shortly before the Easter Break, then you are one of our very first visitors. Please stick around over the forthcoming months as we have some fantastic plans for the website.

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PRECISELY!

MAY 3, 2017

In this series we’ll be looking at time and time-keeping, and the challenges and opportunities when applied to packet capture and replay.  In this space, accuracy is key - especially when correlating between recordings.  But achieving consistency across multiple pieces of equipment deployed to several sites can be difficult.

We'll attempt to address some of the common problems that occur and look at tested solutions, as well as covering some of the background to explain what is going on.

So let’s start by looking at something very topical, and proving to be quite contentious.

ETHERNET

STATISTICS

DEC 10, 2015

Bit Rate, Packet Rate and Loading

Some of the most common statistics to see for ethernet are the bit rate for a connection (e.g. 1G, 10G), the packet rate (e.g. 1.8Mpps) and the loading (e.g. 37%). But how are these calculated, and what do they mean in practice?

The bit rate is the logical speed or bandwidth of the link, and indicates the maximum data rate that can be transmitted, including overheads (see below).

The maximum packet rate isn't fixed, but depends on the average packet size, and this in turn depends on the traffic type. For example, VoIP packets tend to be very small, whilst web browsing packets are usually much larger.

Loading describes what proportion of the link's bandwidth is being used, and takes into account the amount required by the packet itself plus ethernet overheads such as preamble and inter-frame gap.

HIGH SPEED

STORAGE

DEC 7, 2015

In developing the PacketRAID recorder, The Packet Company invested a considerable amount of time and effort into evaluating different storage configurations. Below, we outline our approach, one of the tools we developed, and the results we achieved.

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WE ARE ALSO A RESELLER

We are proud of our close relationships with some of the most innovative technology providers in the world. Our aim has always been to be positioned to provide our customers with the best products available within the marketplace. It is important that the products we resell form a complimentary IT Security ecosystem for our clients. Not only is innovation and technical excellence important in our selection criteria, but also ensuring that these partners have sustainable and enduring product roadmaps. It is critical that we provide cohesive and mutually beneficial solutions, however it is equally important that this also presents our valued customers with a long term, value for money capability.

We are always looking to forge new relationships with similarly focussed businesses. So, if you are either a product manufacturer or a service provider who you think provides products or technologies which have synergies with us, then please reach out to discuss this in more detail; either phone on (UK) 0844 310 3330 or (INTL) +44 (0)1635 5766260 or alternatively email at enquiries@packet.company.