Cisco Performance Routing isn’t your grandfather’s routing. Cisco Performance routing (PfR for short) considers a particular path’s traffic characteristics when determining the best path for the conversation. Imagine being able to use actual delay, packet loss, MOS, jitter and more to give your router a better idea of the traffic conditions. With that data it can make a smart decision on how to route the conversation traffic. Add to that the ability to report on this with something simple like Netflow and you have solution that sounds to good to be true. Well, it isn’t!

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Advanced Netflow Integration has been a hot topic with the customers that I have been working with in this past week.  Most of these companies  have been working with have  High Volume Netflow  and the idea of having “best of breed” when it comes to their Network Monitoring system isn’t new.  That is why I was happy with the release of Scrutinizer v9 since it has added to it’s ability to intergrate with many of todays popular network monitoring solutions!

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I’m told that Riverbed® Cascade® Flow has introduced latency metrics to their NetFlow exports.  With this new information, we can possibly report on latency between hosts, application latency and even latency involving services in the cloud (i.e. Monitoring Cloud Performance).

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First of all, I’m a fan of sFlow, NetFlow, IPFIX, NetStream, JFlow, etc. I like them all.  In this blog I would like to point something out that a customer made clear to me about sFlow.

IPFIX, NetStream, JFlow are all ‘NetFlow’ like technologies. These NetFlow technologies are truly ‘flow’ based.  On the other hand, sFlow is not.  It is a packet sampling technology. It has BIG benefits;  however, the benefits are very different from a flow-based protocol such as NetFlow and IPFIX. Lets take a look at the definition of a flow.

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The first day of Cisco Live Europe 2011 is going well. If you want to check out the new features in our Flexible NetFlow reporting tool, you’ll find us in booth E9, right next to the Cisco store.

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Q: Can you perform billing with sFlowsamples?

A: Yes, depending on how you need to invoice.

Being a vendor that supports NetFlow and sFlow reporting, we deal with lots of flow questions.  Most recently, I was dealing with a customer that was trying to figure out how to do billing with sFlow.  Depending on how you want to invoice, sFlow may or may not be appropriate.  This document from Inmon sums it up nicely by saying, “sampling does not provide a 100% accurate result.”  The document goes on to state, “but it does provide a result in which the error can be accurately characterized.” Which is really a fancy way of saying that sampling allows you to be ‘fairly’ accurate.

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While attending CeBit in Germany last March, I was able to meet our German reseller, TCC Gmbh, as well as our Nordic reseller, Plan Two. These types of meetings are important for two reasons. The first is being able to put a face with a name. Knowing who you are talking to and being able to associate that person with a physical meeting can go a long way in helping that relationship grow. The second is market understanding. In the international arena, having strong resellers who understand their client’s needs, as well as their country’s laws and regulations is necessary. It is the only way you can ensure growth in that country.

This month, I had the privilege of meeting with our largest UK reseller, Teneo.

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It was my last free day in London and I bumped into one of our favorite Time Lord’s worst enemies. Trust me, I would have much rather spent the day having fun, running around London, but this was serious!

With the words “Exterminate, Exterminate” ringing in my ear, I decided that the only way to save the human race was to find The Doctor. London is a big city and a bit foreign to me. I needed to find him and fast. I first stopped at Starbucks. A quick double espresso with an extra shot was what I needed. It could be the end of the world, no time to mess with tea.

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Sometimes you see a name flash across your screen that draws your attention.  A few months ago I had one that did just that. When I decided to visit London I knew it was an attraction that I needed to see.

I use the term “amateur horticulturist” loosely when describing one of my hobbies. I am still in the beginning steps of building a self-contained, hydroponic garden and fish farm powered by Arduino. By “beginning steps” I mean that I have a lot of bookmarks and interesting YouTube videos.

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One of the highlights of my job is being able to work with people from all over the world. Calls from China, GotoMeetings with Norway and video conferencing with the UK are all day to day activities for me. This month is a little different. Yesterday was the first day of my world wind trip to London, Dublin and Paris.

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