Dell PowerConnect 7048P User Manual - Page 392

from monitored devices. sFlow datagrams forward sampled traffic statistics to the sFlow Collector for analysis. You can specify up to eight different sFlow receivers to which the switch sends sFlow datagrams. Figure 15-1. sFlow Architecture sFlow Receiver sFlow Datagrams PowerConnect Switches (sFlow Agents) ` ` ` ` ` ` The advantages of using sFlow are: • It is possible to monitor all ports of the switch continuously, with no impact on the distributed switching performance. • Minimal memory/CPU is required. Samples are not aggregated into a flowtable on the switch; they are forwarded immediately over the network to the sFlow receiver. • The sFlow system is tolerant to packet loss in the network because statistical modeling means the loss is equivalent to a slight change in the sampling rate. • sFlow receiver can receive data from multiple switches, providing a realtime synchronized view of the whole network. • The receiver can analyze traffic patterns based on protocols found in the headers (e.g., TCP/IP, IPX, Ethernet, AppleTalk...). This alleviates the need for a layer 2 switch to decode and understand all protocols. 392 Monitoring Switch Traffic