From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 31 00:32:01 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2948416A4CE for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:32:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from caliban.dreamscope.com (mail.dreamscope.com [69.55.225.46]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12ABA43D41 for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:32:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from chance@dreamscope.com) Received: from belial (caliban.dreamscope.com [69.55.225.46]) by caliban.dreamscope.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 948604CA35; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:31:41 -0800 (PST) From: "Chance Whaley" To: "'Wes Peters'" , "'Steven Stremciuc'" , Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 01:32:02 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510 In-Reply-To: <200403301406.05470.wes@softweyr.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Thread-Index: AcQWozW4I6AqKl+QRYi5QX7mQ1wHoAAVoAhg Message-Id: <20040331083141.948604CA35@caliban.dreamscope.com> Subject: RE: Looking for switch recommendations ... X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 08:32:01 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-net@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-net@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Wes Peters > Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 3:06 PM > To: Steven Stremciuc; freebsd-net@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Looking for switch recommendations ... > > > Every switch that does port mirroring probably has some > problems related to port mirroring, because mirroring > typically cannot be done in hardware. If nothing else, you > can expect some degraded performance on the port(s) being > mirrored and on the port doing the mirroring, because the > packets have to be fondled by the CPU before they can be > switched. Even with a really fast processor, this will > increase the latency a bit. This is an untrue statement. There are several switch vendors that pride themselves on their wire-speed mirroring capabilities - specifically their ability to do it in hardware. Foundry's BigIron and the like comes to mind as a highly reliable and fairly inexpensive (subjective) switch that is very capable of doing multi-port wirespeed mirroring at line rate. .chance