Overview of System Interfaces

Interfaces have several characteristics that affect the way you monitor them. The topology, duplexity, and transmission characteristics all affect how you calculate utilization and what errors you monitor.

One characteristic is the topology: point-to-point or broadcast. A point-to-point link connects two interfaces. Generally, all WAN interfaces fall in this category. A broadcast topology has more than two interfaces connected. Broadcast topologies are used almost exclusively in LANs. Shared Ethernet is a good example of a broadcast topology. However, with the rise of switched Ethernets, many Ethernet links are now point-to-point.

The duplexity has a great effect on performance measurements and calculations. A link ...

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