bandwidth monitoring on catalyst switches

[r.dufton]

hello all,

i am wanting to do some network performance testing by checking peak load bandwidth across my switch ports.Is there a way i can monitor and log multiple switch ports ? I believe monitoring one port can be done but can i monitor multiple at once?

If this can be done can someone point me in the right direction to do this, and i not is anyone aware of any software i can buy which may help ?

thanks in advance...

Richard

[skarundi]

If you are running catos, you can use the basic bandwidth calculating tool by issuing the "show top" command. The full keyword list for the command is found at

URL:http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/sw_8_2/confg_gd/topn.htm

You could use also SNMP to monitor port and chassis bandwidth utilization. Cisco has a website that shows you what MIBs to use and also what calculation to apply from the SNMP tool to get the bandwidth utilization.

Doc ID 8141

URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk648/tk362/technologies_tech_note09186a008009496e.shtml

Doc ID 15214

URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk648/tk362/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094a96.shtml

[bhall]

If you are using Windows and have $50 bucks to spend, get PRTG from www.paessler.com (unlimited graphing). This will give you daily/monthly/yearly graphs of each port. Or any OID you put in. If you want to do a little work, then MRTG from www.mrtg.com will do both Windows and Unix.