I'm now trying to find some free switch ports to configure so can't comment yet on performance but I'm not impressed so far.

A pair of layer 2 interfaces, such as switch ports or port channels has one interface configured as a backup to the other.

Devices with IRT functionality have switch ports integrated in the field device.

When a device is first attached to a switch port, it will not immediately start to forward data.

The following switch port mode settings exist:

In the extreme of microsegmentation, each device is located on a dedicated switch port.

In contrast to an Ethernet hub, there is a separate collision domain on each of the switch ports.

Some vendors provide firewall, network intrusion detection, and performance analysis modules that can plug into switch ports.

Another method to monitor may be to connect a layer-1 hub between the monitored device and its switch port.

This will induce minor delay, but will provide multiple interfaces that can be used to monitor the individual switch port.