General Best Practices › Connect the Server to the Switches that Carry Application Traffic

Connect the Server to the Switches that Carry Application Traffic

Select a rack with cable-ready access to all switches that carry data to and from the larger enterprise network. Access-layer switches are the best candidates because they typically send fewer duplicate packets to the collection devices.

Configure a port on each access switch as a mirror output (destination) port. Verify that the traffic of interest is forwarded to the capture card on the server.

We recommend that you collect traffic at the same switch where the monitored servers are connected. This practice lets traffic be seen at the same time that it is transmitted to or from the server, resulting in more accurate data.