Viavi Apex Enterprise G3-APEX-ENT-32T, User Manual

Page: 205 / 380

Introducing Probes
Chapter 4: About Probe Instances 205
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Do not pre-filter, unless you know exactly what you want to capture. Of
course, if something occurs outside the bounds of the filter, you will not
have the data in the GigaStor.
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Do not allow remote users access to the active probe instance.
Figure 109: GigaStor capture and packet capture through probe instances
Figure 109 (page 205) shows how one active probe instance captures and
writes to the GigaStor RAID. Passive probe instances 1 and 2 mine data from
the RAID array. As a best practice, the passive probe instances are bound to the
slowest network adapter in the GigaStor.
Additionally, passive probe instance 3 and 4 are each capturing packets separate
from each other and separate from the active probe instance. However, since
they are also bound to the same adapter as the active probe instance, they are
capturing the same data as the active probe instance.
Which software probe is right for you?
Software probes are an economical choice for many situations.
For companies that cannot invest in dedicated hardware probes, Observer
Platform software probes provide a low-cost monitoring option and are easy to
install and configure. Software probes support Ethernet, Gigabit and wireless and
are appropriate for analyzing speeds of up to 1000 Mbps or for low-utilization
gigabit networks via a SPAN/mirror port on a switch. The Observer software can
handle fast network speeds (including 40 Gigabit), but it is the network adapter
that is the bottleneck on home-grown systems. VIAVI uses a custom-designed