Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide, NX-OS 4.0 (OL-16598-01, June 2008)

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31-2
Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide
OL-16598-01
Chapter 31 Troubleshooting Your Fabric
Troubleshooting Tools and Techniques
Traffic Analyzer—Another option is to launch the Cisco Traffic Analyzer for Fibre Channel from the
Fabric Manager Server to analyze the traffic in greater depth. The Cisco Traffic Analyzer allows you to
breakdown traffic by VSANs and protocols and to examine SCSI traffic at a logical unit number (LUN)
level.
Protocol Analyzer—If even deeper investigation is needed, the Cisco Protocol Analyzer for Fibre
Channel can be launched in-context from the Cisco Traffic Analyzer. The Cisco Protocol Analyzer
enables you to examine actual sequences of Fibre Channel frames easily using the Fibre Channel and
SCSI decoders Cisco developed for Wireshark.
Port Analyzer Adapter—Fabric Manager Server and Device Manager use SNMP to gather statistics.
They fully utilize the built-in switch statistics counters.
Integration with the Cisco Traffic Analyzer and Cisco Protocol Analyzer extend the switch analysis
capabilities by analyzing the Fibre Channel traffic itself. The Cisco Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN)
enables these solutions using a flexible, nonintrusive technique to mirror traffic selectively from one or
more ports to another switch port within a fabric.
The Cisco Port Analyzer Adapter (PAA) encapsulates SPAN traffic in an Ethernet header for transport
to a PC or workstation for analysis. Both Fibre Channel control and data plane traffic are available using
SPAN. The PAA broadcasts the Ethernet packets so they cannot be routed across IP networks. Hubs and
switches can be used, provided they are in the same Ethernet subnet. Direct connections between a PAA
and the PC are also supported. The PAA can reduce Ethernet traffic by truncating Fibre Channel data.
Both the Cisco Traffic Analyzer and Cisco Protocol Analyzer require the PAA to transport SPAN traffic
to a PC or workstation.
Note The Cisco Traffic Analyzer works best with the Cisco Port Analyzer Adapter 2, because it provides a
length value for truncated data, enabling accurate byte count reporting.
Cisco Traffic Analyzer
The Cisco Traffic Analyzer for Fibre Channel provides real-time analysis of SPAN traffic or traffic
captured previously using the Cisco Protocol Analyzer. The Fibre Channel traffic from multiple Cisco
Port Analyzer Adapters (PAA) can be aggregated and analyzed by the Cisco Traffic Analyzer.
There are limits to how may SPAN sources can be sent to a single SPAN destination port. Aggregation
extends the amount of information that can be analyzed in a unified set of reports by the Cisco Traffic
Analyzer.
Note The aggregation capabilities are restricted to the information collect by Ethernet connections to a single
PC. Aggregation across multiple PCs is not available.
The Cisco Traffic Analyzer provides reports through a Web server, so you can view them locally or
remotely. The traffic analysis functions are provided by “ntop” open-source software, which was
enhanced by Cisco to add Fibre Channel and SCSI analysis and enhanced inter-switch link (ISL) header
support for SPAN. ntop is available on the Cisco.com software download center, under the Cisco Port
Analyzer Adapter. ntop is also available on the Internet at http://www.ntop.org/ntop.html. The Cisco
enhanced ntop runs under Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems.