Transparent switch purpose?

[doffins]

I understand what a transparent switch does, but I'm not exactly clear on it's purpose. I know it's something an admin would use, perhaps for security purposes?
Also, I understand what a sniffer does, but why would a network admin use one?

 

[Lexluethar]

Network admin would use a sniffer to find erroneous packets that are being send across the wire. It's a great tool to use when troubleshooting network slowness when there shouldn't be slowness (IE nothing is being sent across the wire yet your pipe is being saturated).

It's great to use when your network is segmented as well (like ours). This way you can verify that specific packets aren't being broadcasted into the wrong subnet.

As for the transparent switch, i'm honestly lost on that one. I'm in vmware daily and i'm not sure what you are talking about. We have VLAN's that are setup which act like virtual switches to route packets - is that what you mean?