The first thing to do when monitoring a new network is to find out what is running over it. There are various types of applications and network protocols, and they can influence and interfere with each other when all of them are running over the network.
In some cases, you will have different VLANs, different Virtual Routing and Forwardings (VRFs), or servers that are connected to virtual ports in a blade server. Eventually, everything is running on the same infrastructure, and they can influence each other.
There is a common confusion between VRFs and VLANs. Even though their purpose is quite the same, they are configured in different places. While VLANs are configured in the LAN in order to provide network separation in the OSI layers 1 and 2, VRFs are multiple instances of routing tables to make them coexist in the same router. This is a layer 3 operation that separates between different customer's networks. VRFs are generally seen in service provider environments using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) to provide layer 3 connectivity to different customers over the same router's network, in such a way that no customer can see any other customer's network.
In this recipe, we will see how to get to the details of what is running over the network, and the applications that can slow it down.
The term blade server refers to a server enclosure, which is a chassis of server shelves on the front and LAN switches on the back. There are several different acronyms for it; for example, IBM calls them blade center and HP calls them blade system.