Problem to Solve: How can we troubleshoot network traffic that is running inside of a switched network environment without impacting the production traffic?

As Shakespeare used to say in the 1600’s when dealing with the triage and troubleshooting of applications and networks … “to SPAN or not to SPAN, that is the question”.    OK, so we may have taken some creative liberty with the famous quote, but it is still a relevant question in the modern world.   Ironically, most network and application folks are challenged with this question on a pretty regular basis when trying to triage troublesome performance issues.   Something toward the discussion of … “If we decide to use a SPAN to collect the network traffic, we have these pros and cons”….”If we decide against using SPAN, then we have these pros and cons”.

Video Blog … Our First One

Well for this topic, we have tried to take on a new approach with our blog articles.   Today, my partner in crime, Mr. Robert Wright is going to use a video to discuss the various pros and cons around topic of using a SPAN port.   Please reference the YouTube video link to the topic discussion, and we would really appreciate any feedback to the effectiveness of the video blog method.   Comments are welcome !!

Contributing Video Blog Author – Robert Wright, Network Engineer with 15+ years experience

Points to Ponder

• What has your experience been with SPAN or Mirror Ports?
• How has your deployment methodology worked with your APM/NPM tool set?
• Any caveats / challenges / workflows that you have seen