Which Software Probe Is Right For You - Network Instruments GigaStor User Manual

Figure 5: GigaStor capture and packet capture through probe instances
Figure 5 (page 20) 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?

For companies that cannot invest in dedicated hardware probes, Network Instruments' 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. Network Instruments uses
a custom-designed network adapter removing the bottleneck in our probes. These levels of software probes are
available:
Single probe—Single probes have only one probe instance and it is not user-configurable. Single probes
are appropriate for sites with small administrative staffs where only one user needs to look at a probe at
a time. (Not sure what a probe instance is, watch
20 | GigaStor™ (pub. 25.Apr.2014)
this video.)