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Monitoring Device Considerations

When using a Cisco NAM as a monitor, consider the following:

• The Cisco NAM Metric Agent computes response time statistics for all of the application, server, and network combinations that it observes. The CA Application Delivery Analysis Manager discards application, server, and network combinations from the Cisco NAM that do not match the server subnet, client network, and application definitions on the CA Application Delivery Analysis Manager.
• It is possible to SPAN more data to the Cisco NAM Metric Agent than it can process. SPAN carefully to minimize CPU resource consumption and enable the Cisco NAM Metric Agent to make as many accurate measurements as possible without dropping the packets it cannot process.
• You cannot use domains to separate data collection between Cisco NAM monitoring devices. All Cisco NAM monitoring devices belong to the same NAM monitor feed on the CA Application Delivery Analysis Manager.
• If you configure the Cisco NAM to use a Cisco WAE device as a data source, the Cisco NAM Metric Agent can compute response time statistics from TCP headers sent by the Cisco WAE device.
• A Cisco NAM does not temporarily store packet digest files. If a Cisco NAM cannot communicate with its assigned management console, the management console reports will contain missing data.
• The metric digest files from the Cisco NAM do not contain session-level information, therefore, the Active Sessions report is not available for a NAM monitor feed. Instead, use the Metric Receiver Counter window to see summary statistics about what the Cisco NAM sends to the CA Application Delivery Analysis Manager.
• When an application talks to a client by responding to client requests within a specified port range on the client, a Cisco NAM cannot monitor the application. The Cisco Metric Agent identifies the server that hosts an application based on the SYN-ACK response from the server port rather than the port on the client to which the server is sending TCP packets. When defining an application in the management console, if you want to monitor the application with a Cisco NAM, the application’s port side must be set to Application listens on these ports.
• The management console cannot launch a packet capture investigation from a Cisco NAM, but the Cisco NAM supports triggered packet capture investigations.
• URL reporting is supported in the Cisco NAM Traffic Analyzer console rather than the management console when the Cisco NAM acts as the monitor.

More information:

Manage User-Defined Applications

Troubleshoot a Cisco NAM Monitoring Device