4. Network

Table of Contents

4.1. Interfaces
4.2. Counters
4.2.1. Counters charts
4.2.2. Units
4.2.3. Using the legend to view one interface counter
4.3. Top N
4.3.1. Top N charts
4.3.1.1. Custom Top N charts
4.3.2. Units
4.3.3. Understanding the Top N traffic chart
4.3.4. Displaying end host information
4.3.5. Using the legend to drill-down on specific traffic
4.3.6. Filtering for specific traffic
4.4. Circles
4.4.1. Clustering end hosts
4.4.2. Automatically labelling chart elements
4.4.3. Units
4.4.4. Changing the time selection
4.4.5. Selectively labelling chart elements
4.4.6. Displaying end host information
4.4.7. Pan and zoom
4.4.8. Filtering for specific traffic
4.5. Root cause
4.5.1. Selecting the data to analyze
4.5.2. Understanding the results
4.6. Selecting a switch
4.7. Selecting an interface

The Network tab displays network performance statistics using sFlow data collected from switches (including virtual switches) and wireless access points. This tab includes a number of sub-tabs that allow you to view the data in different ways:

Interfaces
Sortable table showing the important interface counters (Utilization(%), Unicasts/s, Broadcasts/s, Multicasts/s, Errors/s, Discards/s) values for the most recent minute, for the for the currently selected switch. This tab is useful for comparing the usage of interfaces based on absolute values. See Section 4.1, “Interfaces”.
Counters
Trend charts showing how the overall network traffic load on an interface varies over time. See Section 4.2, “Counters”.
Top N
Trend charts showing the top N contributors to the network traffic and how the top N contributors change over time. See Section 4.3, “Top N”.
Circles
Charts that allow you to visualize the traffic flows between groups of addresses. See Section 4.4, “Circles”.
Root cause
Data analysis to help you understand the root cause of traffic loads including the cause of tripped thresholds. See Section 4.5, “Root cause”.

4.1. Interfaces

The Interfaces tab provides a tabular, sortable view of the values for the most recent minute, of the important interface counters (Utilization(%), Unicasts/s, Broadcasts/s, Multicasts/s, Errors/s, Discards/s) for the currently selected switch.

This tab is useful for comparing the usage of interfaces based on absolute values. For example to compare the unicasts/s of interfaces with the same ifSpeed on the selected switch (see Section 4.6, “Selecting a switch”), first click with the left mouse button on the Unicasts/s column heading, then click with the Shift+left mouse button on the ifSpeed column heading. This will cause the table to be sorted by unicasts/s and then ifSpeed.

[Note] Note

The Interface column, shows the name of the interface using the interface naming policy (see Section 13.1.1, “Setting the switch and interface naming policy”). This is a useful way to see the name to ifIndex mapping.

The Progress indicator shows when the counter values will next be updated. When sFlowTrend-Pro first starts collecting sFlow data from a switch, the first counter values will be available after 2 minutes. The counter values will then be updated every minute.

To investigate the cause of the usage values for an interface of interest, click on the chart button in the row for the interface. This will automatically make the Counters tab visible with the interface of interest selected.