Understanding Speed Conversion - Network Instruments Matrix User Manual

To perform speed conversion:
1. Starting in the dashboard, click Ports.
The layout designer appears, where connections between network and tool ports can be created.
2. In the Layout list, select a layout.
3. Click the Actions list.
The Actions list is located near the top-right corner of the layout designer.
4. Click Edit.
5. Use a drag-and-drop operation to connect a network port to a tool port.
Successful connections are represented by lines between the ports and the appearance of an empty rule.
The empty rule is a placeholder for introducing options such as filtering.
You successfully performed speed conversion and created network visibility for slower tools that cannot
interface with faster networks, or where the physical connections are mismatched.

Understanding speed conversion

Speed conversion creates network visibility. The Matrix can convert the speed and interface of a network link to
something compatible with analysis tools. Analysis tools can then access traffic they cannot natively inspect.
Use speed conversion to connect slower tools to faster networks, or the opposite. Speed conversion allows
network traffic to ingress the Matrix at one speed and egress to tools at a different speed.
Speed conversion also provides media conversion. For example, network port traffic arriving on copper cable
can leave a tool port as an optical signal. Conversely, optical can be converted to copper. Media conversion is
necessary when the medium between the network and a tool is mismatched. Media conversion is automatic,
so connecting a network port to a tool port (page 17)
correct and the ports are licensed (page
Converting a 10 Gb link to a 1 Gb link poses a risk. The risk of dropping packets greatly increases any time a faster
link is converted to a slower link. Depending on the utilization of the faster link, the slower link might require
packet trimming, load balancing (page
Converting a 1 Gb link to a 10 Gb link does not pose any risks. A slower link can usually be converted to a faster
link without special considerations, as the throughput can never be greater than the maximum available egress
bandwidth. The only exception occurs when
than ten 1 Gb network ports into one 10 Gb tool port.
36 | Matrix™ (pub. 25.Apr.2014)
is all that is required, provided the SFP/SFP+ modules are
46).
39), or filtering (page 24), to avoid port oversubscription.
network link aggregation (page 35) is used to aggregate more