NetFlow Collector: System Requirements
Posted in NetFlow Analysis on May 3rd, 2012 by Jimmy WSystem requirements for a NetFlow collector are a lot higher than the average program. While I am still the “new guy” in support I am already seeing some trends here at Plixer. The majority of cases I have been working with involve servers that seem to run slow despite being on top of the line equipment. Nearly every time this issue comes up it is caused by an improper hard disk configuration.
One of the most overlooked NetFlow Collector System Requirements that write heavy database servers have is disk IOPS (Input/output Operations per Second). You have to remember that a spinning disk is very limited on how many writes it can make at any given time, and if the collector cannot write to the disk fast enough it can cause a lot of problems. This has been the root cause of a lot of slow NetFlow collectors.
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Did you know that you can find quality of service (QoS) information in NetFlow? Knowing what quality of service your crucial network traffic gets can either make or break an efficient infrastructure. Due to its importance, certain traffic may be given a higher priority. Crucial business applications, for example, need higher priority than normal traffic, while social networks can receive low priority. Is there a way to easily find this information? Absolutely!
I have had many customers ask me, “What are the algorithms in Flow Analytics and what do they do?” Excellent question. That is exactly what I will be covering in this second installment of my extensive series on Flow Analytics. In part one I covered 
