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Our What's Up Gold alert for packet discards is showing about 10 ports with nearly 300 packets discarded per minute on our Cisco 6513 switch. &nbsp;Should I worry about this or is it normal? &nbsp;We have a network with about 400 devices. 
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Our What's Up Gold alert for packet discards is showing about 10 ports with nearly 300 packets discarded per minute on our Cisco 6513 switch.  Should I worry about this or is it normal?  We have a network with about 400 devices. 

On a Cisco swich (6500 series) should I worry about packet discards on some ports over 200 per minute?

A switch is a device that filters and forwards packets of data between LAN segments. Switches operate at the data link layer or the network layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model and therefore support any packet protocol. LANs that use switches to join segments are called switched LANs or, in the case of Ethernet networks, switched Ethernet LANs. A hub is a connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports; when a packet arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so that all segments of the LAN can see all packets.

Switches / Hubs

Network Management involves issues that are independent of specific hardware or software, including email policies, upgrade planning, backup scheduling and working with managed service providers for Desktop-As-A-Service (DaaS), Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) and the like through the use of tools, coupled with manufacturer standards, best practice guidelines, policies and procedures plus all other relevant documentation. Network management also includes monitoring, alerting and reporting, management reporting, planning for device or service updates, the backup of configurations, the setting of key performance indicators and measures (KPIs/KPMs), associated service level agreements and problem records as part of the IT Service Management (ITSM) framework.

Network Management

Network analysis is the process of identifying and remediating the processes and systems within a network, including performance, connectivity and security. The process is performed through the use of tools developed for monitoring and analyzing network activity. Network problems that involve finding an optimal way of doing something are studied under the name combinatorial optimization. Examples include network flow, shortest path problem, transport problem, transshipment problem, location problem, matching problem, assignment problem, packing problem, routing problem, Critical Path Analysis and PERT (Program Evaluation & Review Technique).