Port Mirroring - Dell PowerConnect 2708 Appendix

Figure 9-7. File Download

Port Mirroring

PowerConnect 2708/2716/2724 support port mirroring functionality. Port Mirroring allows traffic to
be copied from one port to another port. Port mirroring monitors and mirrors network traffic by
forwarding copies of incoming and outgoing packets from a monitored port to a monitoring port.
The user can specify which target port receives copies of all traffic passing through a specified
source port.
The Port Mirroring feature enables the Network Administator to perfom network monitoring and
debugging, detecting and troubleshooting network traffic problems, faulty NICs, and isolating
communication problems in the network.
The following figure illustrates the concept of Port Mirroring. In this example, port 7 is the Source
Port in the device, and port 3 is the Destination port. In this scheme, the Destination Port monitors
and copies all incoming and outgoing traffic on the Source Port. The Network Administrator can
connect to port 3 a sniffer or some other network traffic analyzer.
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