Methods and devices are provided for non-disruptive monitoring of network
traffic through one or more ports of a Fibre Channel network device.
Preferred embodiments of the invention are used in conjunction with the
switched port analyzer ("SPAN") and/or remote SPAN ("RSPAN") features.
SPAN mode operation allows traffic through any Fibre Channel interface of
a network device to be replicated and delivered to a single port on the
same network device. Ingress SPAN allows the monitoring of some or all
packets that ingress a specified port or ports. Egress SPAN allows the
monitoring of some or all packets that egress a specified port or ports.
RSPAN allows the delivery of the replicated traffic to a port on a remote
network device. Filtering may be applied, for example, to SPAN packets
having selected virtual storage area network numbers.