It provides a combination of functionality that may include aggregating monitoring traffic from multiple links, regenerating traffic to multiple tools, pre-filtering traffic to offload tools, and directing traffic according to one-to-one and many-to-many port mappings. An aggregation switch is a network device that consolidates traffic from multiple access switches, wireless access points, or other edge devices and forwards it to core switches or routers. It is essential for larger networks requiring efficient data flow. This article looks at what each such tool does, compares how they differ from each other, and offers suggestions as to what sort of network each. Test access points (TAP) aggregation is an alternative solution to help with monitoring and troubleshooting tasks in the data center.
[PDF Version]