Specifications

© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Introduction 1-25
NAM / Traffic Analyzer v3.5 Tutorial
© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 1-25
NAM / Traffic Analyzer v3.5 Tutorial
Traffic Analyzer Software
Switch Port Monitoring
Traffic Analyzer Software
Switch Port Monitoring
Catalyst 6500 and Cisco
7600 Series NAM 1/2 only
Catalyst 6500 and Cisco
7600 Series NAM 1/2 only
Port-level statistics include:
Utilization, packets, errors, collisions
Port-level statistics include:
Utilization, packets, errors, collisions
View traffic and error statistics for all
interfaces by selecting an interface
and drill down into the interface to
obtain more details
View traffic and error statistics for all
interfaces by selecting an interface
and drill down into the interface to
obtain more details
Port Statistics
Real-Time &
Historical
Reports Available
Switch Port Monitoring
Naturally, you would expect the NAM to provide port-level monitoring for the host Cisco Catalyst® switch,
and of course it does. Switch monitoring and reporting is available for every port on the switch, regardless of
the NAM configuration. In other words, switch port monitoring is always available because it is the very
foundation of performance monitoring and troubleshooting. In fact, troubleshooting always begins with a
review of statistics.
Using port statistics, you can gather important information about the switch performance as well as utilization
patterns. Switch port statistics include packet and byte counts as well as port utilization. It also includes error
statistics such as cyclic redundancy check (CRC)/alignment errors, oversized and undersized frames,
fragments, jabbers, and collisions. It also provides information on broadcast and multicast activity. In
addition, you can also configure the NAM to notify you when any of these values exceeds the thresholds you
have defined for them.
The NAM gathers these statistics from the mini-RMON agent in the Cisco Catalyst switch. No overhead is
added by collecting these statistics, and you can use them even when you configure other data sources for
the NAM such as VLANs or Cisco EtherChannel® tunnels and you will still continue to collect port statistics.
However, if you want more information than the mini-RMON statistics provide, such as network layer host or
conversation pair data or application protocol data, then you can always copy traffic from any combination of
ports on the switch to the NAM to provide more insight. (A switch can be configured to copy or mirror port or
VLAN traffic and send it to a Switched Port Analyzer [SPAN] port for further analysis; this procedure is called
spanning.)