Cisco Systems MDS 9000 Understanding the PAA-2, Understanding Cisco Traffic Analyzer

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8-3
Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide
OL-6965-03, Cisco MDS SAN-OS Release 2.x
Chapter 8 Cisco Traffic Analyzer
Using Cisco Traffic Analyzer with Performance Manager
Understanding the PAA-2
The PAA-2 enables effective, low-cost analysis of Fibre Channel traffic. The device is a standalone Fibre
Channel-to-Ethernet adapter, designed primarily to analyze SPAN traffic from a Fibre Channel port on
a Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch. The main function of the Port Analyzer Adapter 2 is to encapsulate
Fibre Channel frames into Ethernet frames. This allows low-cost analysis of Fibre Channel traffic while
leveraging the existing Ethernet infrastructure.
The PAA-2 allows you to examine Fibre Channel frames of various sizes. Fibre Channel frames from
Layers 2, 3, and 4 may be examined without network disruption.
Understanding Cisco Traffic Analyzer
Performance Manager collects Fibre Channel level performance statistics using SNMP to access
counters on Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches. To view detailed SCSI I/O statistics, you need to look at
the data on an SD port with the help of Cisco Traffic Analyzer, which uses the Cisco Port Analyzer
Adapter 2 (PAA-2).
Cisco Traffic Analyzer provides real-time analysis of SPAN traffic or analysis of captured traffic through
a Web browser user interface. Traffic encapsulated by one or more Port Analyzer Adapter 2 products can
be analyzed concurrently with a single workstation running Cisco Traffic Analyzer, which is based on
ntop, a public domain software enhanced by Cisco for Fibre Channel traffic analysis.
Round-trip response times, SCSI I/Os per second, SCSI read or traffic throughput and frame counts,
SCSI session status, and management task information are monitored. Additional statistics are also
available on Fibre Channel frame sizes and network management protocols.
For seamless performance analysis and troubleshooting, Cisco Traffic Analyzer can be launched
in-context from Fabric Manager. Port World Wide Name (pWWN), Fibre Channel ID (FC ID), FC alias,
and VSAN names are passed to Cisco Traffic Analyzer.
Cisco Traffic Analyzer must be downloaded and installed separately from the following website:
http://www.cisco.com/kobayashi/sw-center/sw-stornet.shtml.
Cisco Traffic Analyzer software is available under the Port Analyzer Adapter link. See the “Installing
and Launching Cisco Traffic Analyzer” section on page 8-4.
Caution Cisco Traffic Analyzer for Fibre Channel throughput values are not accurate when used with the original
Cisco Port Analyzer Adapter (PAA) if data truncation is enabled. PAA Version 2 (product ID
DS-PAA_2) is required to achieve accurate results with truncation, because it adds a count that enables
Cisco Traffic Analyzer to determine how many data bytes were actually transferred.
Note Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 Family Configuration Guide for information on configuring the settings
for your span destination port. It is important that the data you collect through this port matches the data
collected by Performance Manager through the mgmt0 port. If the data does not match, you cannot view
Cisco Traffic Analyzer information through a Traffic Analyzer link on the detail page of a Performance
Manager report.