Cisco Performance Agent is another technology that can be exported with Flexible NetFlow. Cisco Performance Agent provides visibility into branch-office applications and network performance. It collects application response time metrics to identify performance degradation across multiple network links:

• Transaction time (TT)
• Monitoring the WAN latency using the server-network-delay (SND) metric
• Monitoring the LAN latency using the client-network-delay (CND) metric
• Monitoring the server processing time using the application-delay (AD) metric

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Mix Master Mitch has created another video and this time it is on Monitor Webex with NetFlow and was created in time for Cisco Live 2012.  His new video can be found on Youtube.

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Are you having trouble getting encrypted NetFlow traffic through your VPN? There is a sort of ambiguous command that can be added to the  Flexible NetFlow export called “output-features” that may help.  This IS REQUIRED to be in the FnF Configuration if you want to set DSCP or use encryption (e.g. VPN tunnels)

Now step two of my Flexible NetFlow configuration looks like this:

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Our company was working with Exinda NetFlow exports last week.  At first pass they seem to have done a very good job with their flow architecture. Although they don’t support IPFIX yet, they did take the time to make sure they used element IDs above 39000 which helps ensure no conflict with Cisco. I wish we could say the same for Riverbed.

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I’m sure many of you are familiar with the rise in targeted attacks via the Internet. How can NetFlow or IPFIX be analyzed to detect these types of security breaches:

• Epsilon email theft resulted in thousands of email addresses being stolen.
• Fox theft resulted in employee information being stolen.
• Sony’s credit card theft resulted in the potentially stolen account numbers  of nearly 25 million SOE (Sony’s Online Entertainment division) customers, as well as 77 million more from the PlayStation® Network.

I started thinking about how amazon.com keeps customer credit card information. I’m sure they are under high alert for targeted attacks at all times.

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We have reached the end of another Friday. First! A special shout out to all the Dads out there. I hope you all have a great weekend of pampering and special treatment.

I decided to write on this subject since the above question does seem to be coming up more and more. So let’s take a moment and discuss how NetFlow works.

NetFlow is quickly becoming the technology of choice when monitoring network performance. One of the coolest things about it is the ability to see granular data on a minute by minute basis. Knowing exactly what happened at 12:13PM yesterday afternoon is just cool.

Since people prefer that granular data, all our math is based on the router exporting flow every minute. So with every minute that goes by, Scrutinizer is populating tables with this 1 minute data. But here is where database management becomes critical…

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When you work in the field that I do, sometimes you celebrate events that leave other people scratching their heads wondering what the hype is all about.

A customer of mine and I were recently having a discussion on various devices that supported NetFlow. His Fortinet firewall became part of the discussion, and at the time, I didn’t think it supported any kind of flow export. However, after finishing the conversation and hanging up the phone, he sent me an e-mail with a nice link documenting sFlow configs for the Fortinet firewall. (Special shout out to Steve for the link)

With the release of FortiOS 4.0MR2, you now have the option of enabling sFlow to monitor your traffic stream. If you’d like to know more about sFlow, please refer to the indepth blog entitled:

“What is sFlow? How do I understand it?”.

To setup sFlow:

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After getting back from Paris, France last year (which was my first international trip), I decided that I would do Rick Steve’s job for half the price. I absolutely loved the experience and envy anyone that could travel on a regular basis. I made a personal promise that my next trip was going to be to Ireland. I’ve always wanted to go, so dangit, I was going to go.

Well, I just got back from my trip two weeks ago today and it was really an experience for the books. Between belching volcanoes, airlines losing my bags and Irishmen doing covers of Pearl Jam, it was fantastic-ness in epic proportions.

If you ever wanted to go, do it. Here’s a couple suggestions from me:

The Guinness brewery tour is really fun to check out. Be sure to start your tour in the morning when they open, that way you can already be two (free!) beers into your day by 11am. Don’t judge me, I was on vacation.

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Over the past couple months, I’ve posted a series of blogs that help highlight some of Scrutinizer’s best features, its strengths and weaknesses and why it might be worth your time in evaluating.

I’d like to devote this blog to the effort of making an easy to read article that might assist you in making an informed decision about the many networking monitoring tools available. Let us know if you have any questions.

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Maybe its because I’ve always been a “support guy”. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been to a “How to be an effective salesman” seminar. I know that I’m not an exemplary seller.

I remember once working at an electronic retail store when I was 17. There was this lady coming in and looking at the cutting edge 900mhz cordless phones that had just come out. The lady was looking at this specific Sony model and the phone was on sale for $79.99.

She was contemplating the purchase, when my conscience got the best of me:

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