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What is the difference between a port and an inferface?

I'm adding devices using Network Sonar, and I notice that I seem to be selecting or deselecting the same interfaces on 2 tabs. On one tab, we call them interfaces. On another tab, we call them ports. Why the difference?

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  • From the KB - Success Center

    • The difference between monitoring an interface in NPM and UDT is, in NPM we gather a lot more statistics – bandwidth usage, errors, discards etc.
  • dgsmith80​ -- I think you are inferring that on the Sonar add-devices wizard, the "Interfaces" tab is for selecting which interfaces are monitored by NPM, and the "Ports" tab is for selecting which interfaces are monitored by UDT. Is that the underlying statement beneath your comment?

    So, for an office access switch, maybe someone might select the uplinks and the interface(s) to which APs are connected to be monitored by NPM on the Interfaces tab; and might select all access interfaces (but not uplinks) to be scanned by UDT on the Ports tab. 

    Is that the gist of it?

  • Hey ebradford​ yes sorry I posted that on the train in a bit of a rush so sorry for the lack of content in my response.

    Your example was really good - spot on. You might not need all your user edge ports fully monitored in NPM for traffic, discards etc, but you do want to keep track of where your devices are on the network, and you want to be able to keep an eye on device capacity. Monitoring the ports in UDT gives you that ability. Also UDT Ports don't trigger an Up/Down Interface alert emoticons_wink.png