Download Cisco Network Analysis Module 6000 Specifications

Traffic Analyzer Software
Application, Host, and Conversation Monitoring
Protocol Distribution
Conversation Pair Statistics
Real-Time &
Historical
Reports
Available
Detailed Host and
Conversation Statistics
NAM / Traffic Analyzer v3.5 Tutorial
© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 1-27
Application, Conversation, and Host Monitoring
One of the greatest strengths of RMON is its ability to look inside the packet at the upper protocol layers to
extract network layer host and conversation pair information. This information gives you Layer 3 network
devices identified by network address or host name and bandwidth consumption per host. It also identifies
which hosts are talking to each other and how much traffic is generated between every conversation pair, in
both directions.
RMON looks deeper into the packet to also identify the applications that are generating the packets that
traverse the switch. Application monitoring not only offers you valuable application distribution statistics
(every application that has consumed bandwidth and how much), but it also gives you the ability to see which
network hosts are using which applications. All this information is essential for identifying acute performance
problems because it points to hosts that are using server and switch resources and how much they are using
them. For a more proactive approach to excessive resource consumption, you can create alarms based on
host and conversation pairs to notify you when usage exceeds a supportable threshold. Host, conversation,
and application usage statistics also support network planning efforts because this information can be used
to identify usage patterns for both users as well as switch, link, server, and application resources.
NAM / Traffic Analyzer v3.5 Tutorial
© 2006 Cisco Systems, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Introduction 1-27