Black Box TS250A, Manual, Page: 29 / 64

Installing the Optical TAP
Chapter 3 Optical TAPs
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Installing the Optical TAP
After reviewing the information in “Deciding whether to use a TAP or
a SPAN/mirror port” on page 8 and “Choosing between a SPAN,
Aggregator, or full-duplex TAP” on page 10, you decided an Optical
TAP was the right one for you. Use the information in this section to
install your TAP.
To install the TAP, you must:

Decide where to place the TAP and physically mount it, if
desired. Depending on the form factor purchased, this will be
in a PC drive bay, rack mount bracket, or wherever it is most
convenient.

Use the TAP cables you purchased (or your own optical patch
cables) to complete the pass-through connection between the
device of interest and the network.

Connect the TAP to your analyzer or other monitoring device.
Be certain to connect to the receive ports on the two NICs in
your analyzer.
These steps are described in more detail in the sections that follow.
An Optical TAP splits the full-duplex signals, allowing the monitoring
device access to a copy of the data stream while maintaining
uninterruptable data flow through the monitored link. Optical TAPs
require no external power, and are available in various split ratios to
match the optical signal strength requirements of the network
connections and of the monitoring equipment.