Tap After A Load Balancer - Network Critical SmartNA-X User Manual

Figure 4: TAP configuration before a load balancer

TAP after a load balancer

You can place TAPs after a load balancer to monitor a group of servers with a single TAP. In this location, you'll be able
to observe which servers are responding to the requested information.
Note: Care must be taken when scheduling the TAP deployment, since all the servers on the segment will be
taken offline while the TAP is connected and configured.
A limitation of placing TAPs after a load balancer would be understanding who is requesting the information. The Load
Balancer typically will appear as the user address making the requester of data appear as a single user. Another possibility
to address recognizing a users location depends on the type of load balancer you are using. For example, if your load
balancer supports it you can enable "x-forward-for" so that the user IP is included in the packet information. Other
possibilities include instrumenting requester information into a custom field embedded in the application. Both methods
are common when monitoring user traffic.
The following figure shows a configuration where a TAP is placed after a load balancer.
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SmartNA-X 1G/10G User Guide 1.4 2015 Network Critical Solutions Limited
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