H3C Technologies H3C WX6000 Series Access Controllers - Manual (Page 359)

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sFlow Configuration
When configuring sFlow, go to these sections for information you are interested in:
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sFlow Overview
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Configuring sFlow
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Displaying sFlow
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sFlow Configuration Example
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Troubleshooting sFlow Configuration
The term switch in this document refers to a switch in a generic sense or an access controller
configured with the switching function unless otherwise specified.
sFlow Overview
Introduction to sFlow
Based on packet sampling, Sampled Flow (sFlow) is a traffic monitoring technology mainly used to
collect and analyze traffic statistics.
sFlow has the following two sampling mechanisms:
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Packet-based sampling: Samples one packet out of a specified number of packets from an sFlow
enabled port.
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Time-based sampling: Samples interface statistics at a specified interval from an sFlow enabled
port.
The sFlow system involves an sFlow agent embedded in a device and a remote sFlow collector. The
sFlow agent collects traffic from the sFlow enabled ports, encapsulates the information into sFlow
packets, and sends the packets to the sFlow collector. The sFlow collector analyzes the sFlow packets
and displays the results.
As a traffic monitoring technology, sFlow has the following advantages:
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Supports traffic monitoring on Gigabit and higher-speed networks.
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Provides scalability with one sFlow collector monitoring multiple or more sFlow agents.
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Implements the low-cost sFlow agent.
Operation of sFlow
sFlow operates as follows:
1) With sFlow enabled, a physical port encapsulates received data into packets and sends them to
the sFlow agent.