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WORKSHOPS
Troubleshooting Virtual LANs
One aspect of network management not simplified by Virtual LANs is network analyzer-based trouble-shooting. In fact, without some rewiring getting a good look at the traffic moving between two stations in a switched VLAN environment may seem almost impossible. Vendors are beginning to find solutions to this problem, too. Perhaps the most interesting is traffic duplication. Traffic duplication is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Traffic to and from any given port is replicated on another port. A clever network manager simply connects the network analyzer to this port and configures the hub to replicate the traffic occurring on any port of interest. The traffic replication feature is one worth asking about. If your vendor doesn't support it, it isn't the end of the world, but on your way to do some trouble-shooting, don't forget to bring a microhub to allow both the end station and analyzer on the same segment.
October 15, 1995
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