Inband Network Telemetry

Inband Network Telemetry (INT) is a framework that is designed to monitor, collect, and report flows and
network states, by the data plane, without requiring intervention or work by the control plane. INT sources
(applications, end-host networking stacks, hypervisors, NICs, send-side TORs, and so on) embed the monitored
INT flow information in normal data packets, and all the downstream devices add the same information with
their details that are based on the source information received.

Inband Network Telemetry is used to achieve per-packet network visibility with low overheads. The following
figure shows the typical workflow for Inband Network Telemetry.

For more information, see the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series NX-OS Programmability Guide.