NetFlow -- The who/what/when/where of packet flows
generalnetworkerror Posted on Thu, April 5, 2012 at 23:27 tagged ip, monitoring, netflow in network management Every network engineer reaches a point in their packet life where they need to gain a much better understanding of the type of traffic and patterns that traverse their network. From corporate users streaming Pandora and YouTube over your Direct Internet Access (DIA) circuits to Data Center spikes putting stress on uplinks, network engineers need to understand who is on the network, what is being done with it, where the packets are flowing, and when this all happens.
For most Cisco routers and higher-end enterprise switches or firewalls, NetFlow, the proprietary Cisco flow metering protocol, and the sFlow open-standard (based on Cisco’s original proprietary protocol like so many others [and many people forget]), give insight into the network traffic and patterns.
