Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 397
53-1001763-02
Trunk monitoring 17

Limitations of Top Talker monitors

Be aware of the following when using Top Talker monitors:
•Top Talker monitors cannot detect transient surges in traffic through a given flow.
•You cannot install a Top Talker monitor on a mirrored port.
•Top Talker can monitor only 10,000 flows at a time.
•Top Talker is not supported on VE_Ports, EX_Ports, and VEX_Ports.
•The maximum number of F_Port Top Talker monitors on an ASIC is 16. If Virtual Fabrics is
enabled, the maximum number of F_Port Top Talker monitors on an ASIC is 8.

Trunk monitoring

To monitor E_Port (ISL) and F_Port trunks, you can set monitors only on the master port of the
trunk. If the master changes, the monitor automatically moves to the new master port.
If a monitor is installed on a port that later becomes a slave port when a trunk comes up, the
monitor automatically moves to the master port of the trunk.
Note the following:
•End-to-end monitors are not supported for ISLs.
•For F_Port trunks, end-to-end masks are allowed only on the F_Port trunk master. Unlike the
monitors, if the master changes, the mask does not automatically move to the new master
port.
•Brocade 300 platforms support eight frame monitors for trunks.
•The Brocade 4100, 4900, 5000, 5100, 5300, 5410, 5424, 5450, 5480, 7500, 7500E, 7600,
7800, 8000, VA-40FC48000, Brocade Encryption Switch, Brocade DCX, and DCX-4S platforms
support 12 frame monitors for trunks.
•For the Brocade 8000, trunk monitoring is supported only on the FC ports and not on the CEE
ports.

Displaying end-to-end and ISL monitor counters

You can use this procedure display the end-to-end or ISL monitors on a specified port. For
end-to-end counters, you can display either the cumulative count of the traffic detected by the
monitors or a snapshot of the traffic at specified intervals.
1. Connect to the switch and log in as admin.
2. Enter the perfmonitorshow command.
perfmonitorshow --class monitor_class [slotnumber/]portnumber [interval]
Example of displaying an end-to-end monitor on a port at 10-second intervals
switch:admin> perfMonitorShow --class EE 4/5 10
Showing EE monitors 4/5 10: Tx/Rx are # of bytes
01234
--------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx
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