How Traffix Manager Discovers Network Devices Using Rmon-2 - 3Com Traffix Transcend Traffix Manager User Manual

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HAPTER OLLECTING
How Traffix
Manager Discovers
Network Devices
Using RMON-2
D
ATA
single segment. Traffix Manager uses RMON-2 functionality to build up a
picture of communicating devices on the network and the traffic flowing
between them, including network layer addresses and protocols seen.
For further information on RMON-1 and RMON-2, refer to the 3Com
RMON-1 and RMON-2 Backgrounder on the 3Com Web Site:
http://www.3com.com/nsc/501305.html.
An agent which supports RMON-2 is able to watch the packets on the
network segment to which it is attached. Depending on the protocol in
use, most packets typically contain a source and destination address. The
RMON-2 agent decodes this address information and uses it to build
tables of data about the communicating devices and the traffic flowing
between them, including network layer addresses and protocols seen.
This information is then retrieved by Traffix Manager and is used to build
a graphical topology of your network (the Traffix Manager Map) and to
compile a list of active devices on your network.
As a result of the RMON-2 method of discovering devices, you may see
more than one object corresponding to the same physical device. For
example, separate entries for a device may be made under its ARP, IP and
IPX addresses. For the same reason, "non-device" objects, such as IP
broadcast and multicast addresses, will appear in the Map.
With no RMON-2 conversation data collected, Traffix Manager is able to
perform only limited functions.
If an agent selected for data collection supports RMON-1 only, Traffix
Manager is only able to collect line statistics data from that agent and
perform basic agent maintenance operations. See
RMON-1 Agents" for more information.
®
Appendix I, "Using