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Monitoring with a CA Standard Monitor › Troubleshoot a CA Standard Monitor › Troubleshoot Dropped Packets

Troubleshoot Dropped Packets

A CA Standard Monitor will, occasionally, report dropped packets for a brief period of time, or extended periods of time. The length of time that this condition persists depends on several factors which can be identified by performing the following troubleshooting steps.

Follow these steps:

  1. Evaluate the total amount of aggregate traffic in the SPAN to the monitor. The inbound data rate (and not the number of active sessions monitored by the monitor) could be causing the data to be dropped. This is a percentage utilization statistic for that port.

    If the sheer amount of data traffic coming into the monitoring device is too high, reduce the amount of data that you SPAN to the Monitor port on the monitor. If the management console is configured to monitor all traffic, you may to need add a monitor and load-balance the server SPAN between the monitoring devices.

  2. Evaluate the total number of active sessions in the Packets monitor feed. The monitor separates and calculates response time data for each active session, therefore, the more active sessions, the greater the impact to process new, incoming data.

    The monitor creates an active session when it observes SPAN traffic that matches an application port, server, and client network that you have defined in the management console.

    If you can update the management console to optimize the list of monitored application ports, servers, and client networks, you can optimize the processing resources on the monitor. If the management console is monitoring the right applications, servers, and network, then you may need to add a monitor and load-balance the server SPAN between the monitoring devices.

  3. Evaluate background processes such as virus scans, spyware scanning and removal programs, and system backup processes. Each additional application running on the monitor impacts the total processor utilization and reduces the ability of the monitor to process inbound data traffic. The more memory, CPU, processor or disk IO bus-intensive these processes are, the fewer packets the monitor can actually process before dropping packets.

    To optimize the available monitor resources, remove these applications from the monitor.