Net Optics Director Switch User Manual


 
Director
7
In this installation, Director has ten additional Span ports and one in-line link that are available for expansion, when
more links need to be monitored.
Monitoring Tools
Still referring to Figure 2, six monitoring tools are connected to Director. They include protocol and performance analyzers,
RMON probes, and an intrusion detection system (IDS). Any of the monitoring tools can be used to observe any of the
connected network links, and the connections can be switched easily, using the Director CLI, without ever moving a
cable or touching the tools. A set of possible data ows is indicated by the colored circles on the links in the diagram.
One of the network monitoring tools is capable of handling more than 1 Gbps, so it is attached to a 10 Gigabit XFP
port. Through this port, the tool can be sent aggregated trafc up to 10 Gbps. For example, the colored circles in the
diagram indicate that trafc from four links is being aggregated and sent to this port.
Four streams of trafc are also being aggregated to the red monitoring tool on the upper left. Since this is a 1 Gbps Monitor
port, aggregated data up to 1 Gbps can be sent to the red tool. If the aggregated trafc exceeds 1 Gbps, packets will be
dropped. To avoid dropping packets, lters should be congured to reduce the aggregated trafc load to 1 Gbps or less.
The two green RMON monitoring tools at the bottom are the same type of tool. Two identical tools provide the capabil-
ity of monitoring a greater amount of data than a single tool can handle. Another reason to use identical monitoring
tools is to provide redundancy in case one of the tools fails. In addition, Director can be congured to send different
types of trafc to each tool, for example, all the TCP trafc to one tool, and the UDP trafc to the other.