General Best Practices › Mirror Ports Work Better than Network Taps

Mirror Ports Work Better than Network Taps

However, you can connect a monitor port to a standard copper or fiber tap. You can also connect a monitor to an aggregating tap rather than a mirror port. For example, use a network tap if mirror ports are already used for another purpose, such as an intrusion detection system (IDS). Purchase a tap that sends the request and the response traffic over the same connection on the tap.

Purchase taps that support pass through on failure. If a tap fails without a pass through or fail-closed mechanism, data ceases to flow through the switch. The pass-through mechanism helps ensure that data stops flowing toward the monitoring application but passes through the switch ports.