Networking monitoring methods on a VDS

Most environments will need a method to monitor the network traffic in one form or the other. Two of the common methods in real-world networking are SPAN (Switch Port Analyzer) and NetFlow. VMware employs both these concepts on the VDS:

• SPAN is simply referred to as port mirroring on a VDS

• NetFlow

Port mirroring

If there is a need to clone vNIC traffic for capturing or monitoring purposes, then that can be achieved by configuring port mirroring on a VDS. It supports four types of mirror sessions:

1. Distributed port mirroring - this is used to mirror traffic from vNIC-assigned dvPorts to other vNIC-assigned dvPorts across hosts.

2. Remote mirroring source - this is used to mirror traffic from vNIC-assigned dvPorts to an uplink or a set of uplinks on one or more hosts.

3. Remote mirroring destination - this is used to mirror traffic from one or more VLANs to one or more vNIC-assigned dvPorts on one or more hosts.

4. Encapsulated remote mirroring (L3) source - this is...