6-3
User Guide for the Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM) Traffic Analyzer, 5.0
OL-22617-01
Chapter 6 NAM Traffic Analyzer 5.0 Usage Scenarios
Deployment
See related content Data Export, NetFlow, page 2-49.
Autodiscovery Capabilities of NAM
If you are an existing NAM 4.x user, you will not need to configure the SPAN sessions, and they will be
auto-created on the NAM (not on the device). If you are a new 5.0 user, you will need to configure SPAN
or NetFlow.
SPAN or NetFlow must be already configured on the device to forward traffic to NAM for auto creating
the data source.
See related content Data Sources, page 2-9.
Creating Custom Applications
NAM identifies applications/protocols based on the TCP/UDP port number, so if there are applications
using custom ports, the NAM can be configured to identify those applications by name instead of the
port.
See related content Applications, page 2-67.
Utilizing Sites to Create a Geographically Familiar Deployment
SPAN sessions are recommended for directing traffic to the NAM. SPAN provides the data needed for
NAM to analyze traffic for application response time, Real-time Transport Protocol, hosts,
conversations, and more. NetFlow v9 can be directed to the same NAM from other devices for analysis
on applications, hosts and conversations.
NAM 5.0 provides the ability to logically segment the network based on IP subnet, data source and
VLAN by creating sites. The recommendation is creating sites based in IP subnet. As an example, a
NAM is connected and monitoring traffic on a distribution switch which has traffic from San Jose, San
Francisco and Sacramento traversing through it. Each site is using unique IP subnets, so in NAM 5.0 the
network can be broken down into three sites (SJ, SF and Sacramento) based on the IP subnets. This
allows you to view traffic per site instead of viewing all the traffic, making it harder to identify and
troubleshoot issues.
See related content Sites, page 2-58.
See related content Site Definition Rules, page 2-59.
Integrating NAM with Third Party Reporting Tools
The NAM Traffic Analyzer Release 5.0 integrates with the CA NetQoS SuperAgent for the purpose of
aggregating Application Response Times.
The NAM Traffic Analyzer Release 5.0 also integrates with CompuWare Vantage and InfoVista 5View
for Host, Conversation, RTP, and Response Time.
See the NAM 5.0 API Programmer’s Guide for configuring NAM and exporting data from the NAM.
See related content Response Time Summary, page 3-5.