Brocade Network Advisor SAN + IP User Manual v12.1.0 - Manual (Page 1652)

1606 Brocade Network Advisor SAN + IP User Manual
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Flow Vision features
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Limitations and prerequisites
The following limitations and prerequisites apply specifically to the Flow Monitor feature.
• Bidirectional flows are supported for F_Ports only. For E_Ports, you must create a separate flow
definition for each direction.
• You cannot specify an asterisk in the Add Flow Definition dialog box to learn all hosts sending
traffic to a LUN.
• You cannot specify an asterisk in the Add Flow Definition dialog box to discover all LUNs being
accessed from a host.
• A single flow definition to monitor all NPIV flows at a port going to a LUN is not supported.
• N_Ports cannot be ingress or egress ports.
• If switch is in Access Gateway mode, only F_Ports can be used as ingress or egress ports.
Refer to “Flow parameter support” on page 1610 for more information on Flow Monitor feature
limitations for flow definition parameters.
Notes on Flow Monitor and trunk ports
Note the following when using Flow Monitor for trunk ports:
• Flow Monitor will gather statistics for all the flow(s) defined on the slave port on respective
master port,
• Flow Monitor gathers statistics on the new master port for all the flow(s) defined on any port in
the trunk.
Flow Generator
The Flow Generator application is used for traffic flow diagnostic and analysis purposes. It
functions by creating artificial traffic in a SAN fabric so that administrators can stress-test the
configuration and the switches in the fabric under extreme traffic load without requiring external
equipment.
Use Flow Generator to create custom flows in the fabric and then identify potential traffic problems
using standard traffic-monitoring tools while the simulated traffic is flowing. You can produce data
to verify several switch metrics such as performance, bandwidth, QoS, routing, zoning and traffic
Isolation. Use Flow Generator with Flow Performance Monitor and MAPS to monitor link utilization,
CRC errors, link timeouts, link resets, Class 3 discarded frames, and RASlog messages generated
during the test.
About test flows
Traffic is generated between a source simulator port (SIM) port enabled on a local switch and
destination SIM port enabled on the local switch or a remote switch. Traffic at the port is confined
within the switch but appears to enter the port from an external device, such as a host. Traffic
appears to egress the remote switch at the destination SIM port to an external device, but is also
confined to the switch. Traffic can be simulated between a simulated host and multiple simulated
targets.