A virtualized computing system including software sensors captures network data from one or more traffic flows the sensors. The captured network data from a given sensor indicates one or more traffic flows detected by the given sensor. The received captured network data is analyzed to identify, for each respective sensor, a first group of sensors, a second group of sensors, and a third group of sensors. All traffic flows observed by the first group of sensors are also observed by the second group of sensors. All traffic flows observed by the second group of sensors are also observed by the third group of sensors. A location of each respective sensor relative to other sensors within the virtualized computing system is determined based upon whether the respective sensor belongs to the first group of sensors, the second group of sensors, or the third group of sensors.