5-24 CHAPTER 5: ADVANCED MANAGEMENT
Matrix
The Matrix group shows the amount of traffic and
number of errors between pairs of devices on a LAN
segment or VLAN. For each pair, the Matrix group
maintains counters of the number of packets,
number of octets, and error packets between the
nodes.
The conversation matrix helps you to examine net-
work statistics in more detail to discover who is talk-
ing to whom or if a particular PC is producing more
errors when communicating with its file server, for
example. Combined with Hosts Top N, this allows
you to view the busiest hosts and their primary con-
versation partners.
Filter
The Filter group provides a mechanism to instruct
the RMON probe to capture packets that match a
specific criterion or condition.
Capture
The Capture group allows you to create capture
buffers on the probe that can be requested and
uploaded to the management workstation for
decoding and presentation.
Events
The Events group provides you with the ability to
create entries in an event log and/or send SNMP
traps to the management workstation. Events can
originate from a crossed threshold on any RMON
variable. In addition to the standard five traps
required by SNMP (link up, link down, warm start,
cold start, and authentication failure), RMON adds
two more: rising threshold and falling threshold.
Effective use of the Events group saves you time;
rather than having to watch real-time graphs for
important occurrences, you can depend on the
Event group for notification. Through the SNMP
traps, events can trigger other actions providing a
mechanism for an automated response to certain
occurrences.