Chapter 1 Sflow Configuration; Sflow Overview; Introduction To Sflow - H3C S5500-EI series Operation Manual

Operation Manual – sFlow
H3C S5500-EI Series Ethernet Switches

Chapter 1 sFlow Configuration

When configuring sFlow, go to these sections for information you are interested in:

sFlow Overview

Configuring sFlow
Displaying sFlow
sFlow Configuration Example
Troubleshooting sFlow Configuration
1.1 sFlow Overview

1.1.1 Introduction to sFlow

Based on packet sampling, Sampled Flow (sFlow) is a traffic monitoring technology
mainly used to collect and analyze traffic statistics.
sFlow has the following two sampling mechanisms:
Packet-based sampling: Samples one packet out of a specified number of packets
from an sFlow enabled port.
Time-based sampling: Samples interface statistics at a specified interval from an
sFlow enabled port.
The sFlow system involves an sFlow agent embedded in a device and a remote sFlow
collector. The sFlow agent collects traffic from the sFlow enabled ports, encapsulates
the information into sFlow packets, and sends the packets to the sFlow collector. The
sFlow collector analyzes the sFlow packets and displays the results.
As a traffic monitoring technology, sFlow has the following advantages:
Supports traffic monitoring on Gigabit and higher-speed networks.
Provides scalability with one sFlow collector monitoring multiple or more sFlow
agents.
Implements the low-cost sFlow agent.
Note:
Currently, only the sFlow agent function is supported on S5500-EI Series Ethernet
Switches.
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Chapter 1 sFlow Configuration