Network Management
Display netflow traffic from VMware virtual distribution switch to physical switch interfaces
When you configure a VDS VSphere Distribution Switch (virtual switch) to send NetFlow data to the Orion Platform, you might want to display traffic under physical switch interfaces, as your physical switch may not support NetFlow. The virtual switch does not support SNMP management; therefore, this switch cannot be added in NPM, and NTA will not be able to show traffic for each interface connected with the virtual switch.
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Overview
When you configure a VDS VSphere Distribution Switch (virtual switch) to send NetFlow data to the Orion Platform, you might want to display traffic under physical switch interfaces, as your physical switch may not support NetFlow.
The virtual switch does not support SNMP management, therefore this switch cannot be added in Orion NPM, and NTA will not be able to show traffic for each interface connected with the virtual switch.
If you have already been monitoring a physical switch in NPM through SNMP and monitoring all the interfaces, you can always assign the IP address to the virtual switch with the exact same IP address you have for your physical switch (preferably connected directly to the ESX host) and pretend that the traffic is sent by the physical switch.
In this article, you will learn how we present virtual switch netflow traffic to show up under a physical switch.
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The following example shows that Cisco 48 port switch was selected.
- When you configure the virtual switch under VCS, NTA alerts you when the traffic hits the port from any unmanaged interface. It also mentions the number of ports for each unmanaged interface, as shown below. This is correlating each interface index.
4/26/2014 3:08 PM EventImg NetFlow Receiver Service [TESTORION] is receiving flow data from unmanaged interface '#105' on 192.168.1.99 and it does not support SNMP. Click the "Add this interface" to manage interface and process its flow data.4/26/2014 3:07 PM EventImg NetFlow Receiver Service [TESTORION] is receiving flow data from unmanaged interface '#100' on 192.168.1.99 and it does not support SNMP. Click the "Add this interface" to manage interface and process its flow data. - Choose any directly connected switch to ESX.
- Assign the same IP address to VDS while creating the VDS (port group).
- Make sure that you have added the same numbers of port with what you have on physical switch. For example, select 48 ports if you have 48 port switches.
- By default, the dynamic port will be assigned to each VM. You can change the binding static under the VDS switch if required.
- At this point, you can change the port ID under port group with what is assigned to the VM.
Note: This will reflect in the interface index number for each interface on the physical switch.
For example, port ID 10 will reflect as Physical Interface 10 on the physical switch. You can move your VMs to any of the interface under VM NIC Advanced Settings.
- Assign the required port to move the VM NIC on the port group.
Once the traffic is received, you will have the switch added under NetFlow Sources as below. Assuming that the traffic has been sent by physical switch connected to the ESX and each physical NIC will be representing for each VM connected to same virtual port under VDS.
- You can further change the description on each physical interface name where the VM is connected on the port. This helps you further find the traffic related to the assigned VM.