Fault-tolerant TAPs (Traffic Access Points) provide access to all
the storage traffic from both sides of a full-duplex link at line rate
speed. Completely invisible and non-intrusive to the storage network,
TAPs provide a way to access fibre channel traffic for monitoring,
analysis and diagnosis.
TAPs are passive devices, not requiring power to function, and will
not affect your data but will create a copy of the traffic. Finisar
Xgig Protocol Analyzers, Rovers, and NetWisdom SAN ProbeFCX probes use
passive TAPs to access Storage Network traffic on SAN links to detect
physical errors, timing errors, and client-server interactions.
Applications connected to business-critical links can not afford
downtime. Best practices for SAN debugging and performance monitoring
is to have pre-installed TAPs in these links allowing SAN
administrators and device vendor field engineers to have access to data
links in order to rapidly troubleshoot any anomalies or slow downs in
the SAN without impacting production servers or applications.
Finisar offers a High Density optical TAP (HDTAP) which minimizes
space requirements and maximizes reliability of access to SAN link data.
TAPs
