Dell PowerConnect 2708 User's Guide - Addendum - Page 8

www.dell.com | support.dell.com Figure 9-7. File Download Port Mirroring PowerConnect 2708/2716/2724 support port mirroring functionality. Port Mirroring allows traffic to be copied from one port to another port. Port mirroring monitors and mirrors network traffic by forwarding copies of incoming and outgoing packets from a monitored port to a monitoring port. The user can specify which target port receives copies of all traffic passing through a specified source port. The Port Mirroring feature enables the Network Administator to perfom network monitoring and debugging, detecting and troubleshooting network traffic problems, faulty NICs, and isolating communication problems in the network. The following figure illustrates the concept of Port Mirroring. In this example, port 7 is the Source Port in the device, and port 3 is the Destination port. In this scheme, the Destination Port monitors and copies all incoming and outgoing traffic on the Source Port. The Network Administrator can connect to port 3 a sniffer or some other network traffic analyzer. 8