--- title: "In virtual private cloud" canonical: "https://thoughtdata.refined.site/space/TUD/55186199/In%20virtual%20private%20cloud" format: markdown --- ### Setting up Netsense packet sensor with right traffic feeds in virtual private cloud The functionality of Netsense packet sensor software truly depends on the right traffic fed to it in your IT network. Selecting right virtual network links in your private cloud IT network is crucial for efficient network performance monitoring(NPM). In private cloud you can pick and choose which hypervisors and VMs are important to monitor. Getting visibility into internal communication in your virtual network inside your private cloud is critical for efficient monitoring. VMs running critical application services should be chosen to monitor. Efficient network monitoring starts with choosing the right VMs and their vNIC links for monitoring and tapping the traffic from those links and feeding it to your Netsense packet sensor. For tapping traffic from virtual network links in a private cloud data center there are 3 options 1. Setting up port mirroring in virtual distributed switch(VDS) 2. Setting up promiscuous mode on port groups of your hypervisor 3. Using NetMirror software from ThoughtData on your critical application server VMs 1. **Option 1: Set up port mirroring in virtual distributed switch(VDS) - Most recommended option** The virtual distributed switch concept in virtual networking helps you create a logical network for all your hypervisors. VDS provides port mirroring functionality similar to on premises networks for you to pick and choose VMs across multiple hypervisors to mirror the traffic to a target destination vNic/VM. The destination vNic and VM shall be that of the virtual Netsense sensor which you have setup in your private cloud. Note that Netsense packet sensor VM need not reside on the same hypervisor as the VMs from which you are mirroring the traffic from. Refer to your respective hypervisor user guide on how to setup port mirroring. The below link provides guidance to setting up port mirroring in VDS in vmware private cloud [Working With Port Mirroring (vmware.com)](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-CFFD9157-FC17-440D-BDB4-E16FD447A1BA.html) **Note:** If you have not setup VDS in Vmware private cloud and only using local vswitch functionality in each hypervisors, you can not setup port mirroring, since port mirroring function is only available in VDS. VDS functionality is only available in enterprise versions of vmware license. Check your vmware license, if it has capability to setup VDS, if decide to setup a new VDS. If VDS is not a option in your private cloud, the alternate options are 1. Setting up promiscuous mode on port groups of your hypervisor 2. Using NetMirror software from ThoughtData on VMs **Option 2: Set up promiscuous mode on port groups of your hypervisor** If you are using only vswitch method for your virtual network on your hypervisors. the alternate option is to enable promiscuous mode on port groups of your hypervisors. In this method the Netsense VM will monitor all traffic on the physical port of your hypervisor on which its vNIC is running. In this method you will need to setup a Netsense VM on every hypervisor on which you intend to monitor one or more VMs, so you need as many Netsense VMs are your hypervisors, which you wish to monitor. Typically you would like to choose only those hypervisors where your business critical application server VMs are running for monitoring. Once you identify the hypervisor, you would need to create a separate port group in your hypervisor for Netsense VM. Creating separate port group allows you enable promiscuous mode only on the Netsense VM. All other VMs running in other port groups are not disturbed and do not run in promiscuous mode.  **Note:** You need to setup the port group for Netsense VM on same vswitch on which your critical VMs are running The below link provides guidance to setting up promiscuous mode on port groups in your vmware private cloud Refer to the topic "[How to setup promiscuous mode for your Netsense sensor in Vmware hypervisor](Setting_up_promiscous_mode_in_Vmware.htm)" for more details". **Option 3: Using NetMirror software from ThoughtData on your VMs** If you do not have VDS or unable to configure promiscuous mode on your hypervisor, the alternate option is to install and setup NetMirror software agent on each of your critical application server VMs which you wish to monitor. NetMirror software from ThoughtData provides capability to stream traffic from one or more vNICs on your VMs to a destination Netsense VM. The destination Netsense VM need not be on same hypervisor but should be reachable from the Source VM. NetMirror software from ThoughtData is a replacement for Port mirroring functionality offered by your VDS. NetMirror software uses very minimal resources on your application server VM and continuously captures and streams traffic from source VMs to Netsense VM using high data compression. One Netsense sensor can get traffic streams from multiple NetMirrors. NetMirror software is only a layer 3 function and does not interfere with any other communications or applications running on your business critical VMs. The below link provides guidance to setting up NetMirror in your private cloud Refer to the topic ["How to setup NetMirrors for your Netsense sensor in your private/public cloud" for more details"](../../installtoc/install-netsense/Installing_NetMirror.htm).