At-A-Glance
Improve Operational Efficiency with Cisco NAM
Appliances and VSS Monitoring Distributed Traffic
Capture System
Extend Network Reach for Comprehensive Performance
Visibility
Cisco NAM is traffic and performance analysis solution that empower network
administrators with actionable visibility to optimize network resources, troubleshoot
performance issues, and deliver a consistent end-user experience. As a member of
the Cisco NAM family of products, the Cisco NAM appliances offer high deployment
flexibility providing detailed traffic analysis, rich application performance metrics,
comprehensive voice analytics, and deep insightful packet captures. It supports Cisco
Prime™ NAM Software 5 that implements an interactive graphical user interface (GUI)
with prepackaged dashboards offering an immediate view of network performance and
workflows to streamline your troubleshooting and optimization decisions. It helps you
manage and improve the operational effectiveness of Cisco Borderless Networks and
the Cisco data center.
VSS Monitoring Distributed Traffic Capture Systems™ (DTCS) extends the reach of
the Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM) appliance by providing it with extensive
network access and eliminating port contention. The combination of products delivers
consistent, comprehensive and accurate network traffic visibility for the entire network.
VSS Monitoring DTCS are hardware-based traffic capture systems with integrated
network taps. These exceptionally flexible devices passively tap multiple networks or
capture network traffic from Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) ports, forwarding the traffic
to NAM Appliances and other tools.
The resulting network visibility allows network administrators to:
• Quickly access network resources for monitoring without the need for a
change control
• Optimize traffic capture by applying filtering and load-balancing techniques
• Accelerate troubleshooting of performance issues combining broader network
visibility with deeper packet analysis
• Manage delivery of a consistent user experience with state-of-art
performance analytics
Deploy VSS Monitoring DTCS with NAM Appliance in
Your Network
The VSS Monitoring DTCS broadens network traffic reach for Cisco NAM appliance
deployments. The coverage of network data delivered to the NAM for monitoring
allows for superior business-critical application performance and network availability.
VSS Monitoring DTCS mitigates the shortage of SPAN port and uses network
taps—which retain all packets, regardless of load; are passive and distortion free; and
do not alter packet time or sequence. VSS Monitoring DTCS centralizes monitoring
infrastructure by offering selective aggregation, filtering, load-balancing, remote
management, and complete configuration flexibility.
With selective aggregation and filtering, the VSS Monitoring DTCS can extend the
reach of 10 gigabit NAM appliance to the access and distribution layers, which use 1
gigabit links. This scenario is common in today’s rapidly growing and evolving network
infrastructure.
In 10 gigabit environments, VSS Monitoring DTCS also makes it possible to monitor
the links using NAM Appliance with 1 gigabit interfaces. A common use case is that
VSS Monitoring DTCS will take a feed from 10 gigabit networks, at full line rate, and
filter and load-balance the traffic into manageable data rates for 1 gigabit monitoring
solutions.
For monitoring across geographically dispersed networks, the combined Cisco NAM
and VSS Monitoring DTCS solution helps IT to quickly resolve network congestion and
service-level agreement (SLA) issues.
© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates. Cisco and the Cisco Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks
mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1007R)
At-A-Glance
Why Cisco?
Figure 1. NAM 2220 Appliance Deployment example with VSS Monitoring DTCS
Cisco NAM 2220 Appliance
Cisco NAM 2220 Appliance
The Cisco NAM appliances deliver network intelligence to help you manage and
improve the operational effectiveness of Cisco Borderless Networks and the Cisco data
center deployments. Industry-leading VSS Monitoring DTCS accommodates growing
networks and emerging monitoring requirements, giving Cisco NAM Appliances the
ability to see into the farthest reaches of even the largest networks.
Session-Aware Flow-Based
Load-Balancing
10G Egress
10G Ingress
10G Ingress
10G Egress
10G Inter
10G Inter
SR Link
SR Link
SR Link
SR Link
Switch Link
Switch Link
Nexus 7000
Nexus 7000
Nexus 7000
Nexus 7000
Nexus 7000
Nexus 7000
Switch-1
Switch-1
Switch-2
Switch-2
Switch-1
Switch-2
Cisco Nexus 7000
Cisco Nexus 7000
As illustrated in Figure 1, VSS v24 Expert Edition DTCS aggregates the six 10 Gigabit
SR Links using VSS Version 1.1 all passive basic taps. The v24 DTCS is also being
used to Tap and aggregate the four SPAN ports on the two Cisco Nexus® 7000
Switches. Using High Data Burst Buffering Ports and Selective Aggregation, network
operations can ensure all traffic is accessible and never dropped prior to grooming and
distribution using Session-aware Load Balancing to the two NAM 2220 appliances.
Solution Benefits
The solution reduces network management and monitoring costs by reducing the
physical touch points needed to provide complete visibility into the network. This
provides immediate return on investment (ROI) by lower application incident costs and
quicker time to systems incident resolution. Customers will realize:
• Up to 120 percent higher application availability
• As much as 60 percent reduction in labor costs for network management
• Up to 80 percent lower network monitoring costs overall
• Up to 85 percent greater end-user protection from network disruption*
* Aberdeen Research, 2007
© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates. Cisco and the Cisco Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks
mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1007R)
C45-677440-00 07/11