3Com S7906E - Switch, Configuration Manual

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sFlow Configuration
When configuring sFlow, go to these sections for information you are interested in:
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sFlow Overview
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Configuring sFlow
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Displaying and Maintaining sFlow
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sFlow Configuration Example
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Troubleshooting sFlow Configuration
The S7900E Series Ethernet Switches are distributed devices supporting Intelligent Resilient
Framework (IRF). Two S7900E series can be connected together to form a distributed IRF device. If an
S7900E series is not in any IRF, it operates as a distributed device; if the S7900E series is in an IRF, it
operates as a distributed IRF device. For introduction of IRF, refer to IRF Configuration in the System
Volume .
sFlow Overview
Introduction to sFlow
Sampled Flow (sFlow) is a traffic monitoring technology mainly used to collect and analyze traffic
statistics.
The sFlow system involves an sFlow agent embedded in a device and a remote sFlow collector. The
sFlow agent collects traffic statistics and packets from the sFlow enabled ports on the device,
encapsulates the information into sFlow packets, and sends the packets to the sFlow collector. The
sFlow collector analyzes the sFlow packets and displays the results.
sFlow has the following two sampling mechanisms:
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Packet-based sampling: An sFlow enabled port samples one packet out of a configurable number
of packets passing through it.
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Time-based sampling: The sFlow agent samples the statistics of all sFlow enabled ports at a
configurable interval.
As a traffic monitoring technology, sFlow has the following advantages:
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Supporting traffic monitoring on Gigabit and higher-speed networks.
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Providing scalability to allow one sFlow collector to monitor multiple or more sFlow agents.
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Implementing the low-cost sFlow agent.