Port monitoring

Port monitoring provides the ability to analyze traffic passing through monitored ports by mirroring the traffic from one port to another port on one switch or a switch connected to a network analyzer. The Network analyzer port is the destination for the mirrored traffic. The network analyzer port (the mirrored-to uplink port or downlink port) is for the downlink server ports within a single enclosure. There is a single mirrored-to port per logical interconnect.

Port monitoring is supported only on a physical port and applied only to a downlink port. You can configure port monitoring on a logical interconnect only with the interconnect modules that are in configured state. Ports that are mirrored are known as monitored ports or mirror-from-port. Port where the packets are copied is known as analyzer port or mirror-to-port. The physical interconnect modules of a logical interconnect contain all the port monitoring configurations. To configure port monitoring, specify one or more source ports along with a destination port. The destination port is also known as mirror-to port (MTP).

The MTP receives a copy of the ingress or egress traffic as configured on monitored source ports. The monitored port mirrors the ingress or egress traffic. To monitor the Ethernet traffic direction from a source port, select one of the following options:
  • To server: To monitor only ingress traffic.
  • From server: To monitor only egress traffic.
  • Both: To monitor both ingress and egress traffic.

Port monitoring helps you to mirror traffic from server ports when the physical access to the network interface on the server is limited.

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