1. A computer-implemented method comprising: in a virtualized computing system in which a plurality of software sensors are deployed and in which there are one or more traffic flows, receiving captured network data from the plurality of sensors, the captured network data from a given sensor of the plurality of sensors indicating one or more traffic flows detected by the given sensor; analyzing the received captured network data to identify, for each respective sensor, a first group of sensors, a second group of sensors, and a third group of sensors, wherein all traffic flows observed by the first group of sensors are also observed by the second group of sensors, and all traffic flows observed by the second group of sensors are also observed by the third group of sensors; and determining, for each respective sensor, a location of each respective sensor relative to other sensors within the virtualized computing system based upon whether the respective sensor belongs to the first group of sensors, the second group of sensors, or the third group of sensors.