Software Guide

Monitor
Tsunami
®
800 & 8000 Series - Software Management Guide 257
Figure 7-41 sFlow Architecture - An Example with a BSU and SUs
The sFlow Agent, which is running on devices, captures traffic information received on all the Ethernet interfaces, and sends
sampled packets to the sFlow Receiver for analysis.
The sampling mechanism used to sample data are as follows:
`
Packet Flow Sampling: In this sampling, the data packets received on the Ethernet interface of the device are
sampled based on a counter. With each packet received, the counter is decremented. When the counter reaches zero,
the packet is packaged and sent to the sFlow Receiver for analysis. These packets are referred to as Packet Flow
Samples.
`
Counter Polling Sampling: In this sampling, the sFlow Agent sends counters periodically to the sFlow Receiver based
on the set polling interval. If polling interval is set to 5 seconds then the sFlow Agent sends counters to sFlow Receiver
every 5 seconds. These packets are referred to as Counter Polling Samples.
The Packet Flow Samples and Counter Polling Samples are collectively sent to the sFlow Receiver as sFlow Datagrams. It is
possible to enable either or both types of sampling.
sFlow Sampling effects the system performance and hence care must be taken in configuring the sFlow parameters.
To configure sFlow, navigate to MONITOR > Tools > sFlow. The following sFlow® screen appears: