Cisco NetFlow allows for extremely granular and accurate
traffic measurements by recording network traffic into the
device cache. Since network traffic has a flow nature to it,
the NetFlow accounting data that is built
in the cache, characterizes the IP traffic being forwarded.
Cisco NetFlow data records exported
by routers and switches consist of expired traffic flows with
detailed traffic statistics. These flows contain information
about source and destination IP addresses along with the protocols
and ports used in the end-to-end conversation.
This exported
NetFlow data is collected and analyzed by NetFlow Analyzer
to generate reports on top hosts, top applications, and top
conversations using bandwidth in your network.
Cisco NetFlow combined with NetFlow
Analyzer yields valuable information about the behavior of
traffic on your network. Armed with this information, it is
easier to make critical decisions on bandwidth capacity, security,
and optimal usage of network infrastructure.
NetFlow traffic statistics
The latest version of NetFlow Analyzer supports Netflow version 5, version 7 & version 9 exports.
While NetFlow version 5 is the most used
version supported on routers, NetFlow version 7
is an enhancement that exclusively supports NetFlow with Cisco
Catalyst 5000 series switches equipped with a NetFlow feature
card (NFFC). NetFlow version 7 is not compatible with Cisco
routers. NetFlow version 9 is the recent addition to the series.
NetFlow packet details
NetFlow Analyzer accounts for the following
details from the NetFlow Packets :
As a network manager you need to be on top of your network to be in control of the day-to-day happenings in your network. Especially, with more and more businesses being increasingly dependent on the internet, it is very vital that you are in total control of your network.Any network outage has to be quickly attended to and fixed right away. More importantly any network incidents has to be pro-actively attended to. NetFlow Analyzer with its proactive alerting mechanisms ensure that you are informed of any network exceptions as it happens. Also the drill down features let you quickly pin down the cause of any network problems and troubleshoot faster.
It is also very essential that you ensure your business critical applications are not starved off bandwidth while non-critical activities like music downloads hog the available bandwidth. By giving you an indepth visibility in to your network and the bandwidth usage statistics you can appropriately set QoS policies. It is also possible to categorize applications that consume bandwidth by port, protocol and IP address. This way you can be fully empowered to ensure that the business critical applications always have the required bandwidth.
As a network administrator you need to have all the reports to take the right decision. Especially when it comes to bandwidth capacity planning decisions the stakes involved are high and even a small mistake can cost huge money. NetFlow Analyzer with its long range historical reporting lets you take the right decisions. Also as a network administrator you need to have periodic reporting to understand how the network is performing. NetFlow Analyzer's automatic report generation feature at scheduled time periods help you with just that.
Should you need any specific information at any point in time, you could just access the application for a quick snapshot. NetFlow Analyzer's dashboard presnet you with all the vital metrics you need to eb aware on as an administrator. You could drill down on it for any further infromation on any specific element of your network.
