Using Cisco Application Visibility and Control (AVC), network administrators can manage network application performance by setting up a wireless policy to prioritize, control, and bring visibility to the BYOD applications traversing their network.

There are many challenges IT managers face on a daily basis. As the number of user devices and the business, personal and collaborative applications continue to grow, these challenges only make the job of an IT manager harder.

Today’s networks support a mixed use of guests, employees and vendors. Without classifying and prioritizing applications on the network, employees risk losing productivity and response time to critical applications that they use.

Imagine what goes through the mind of an IT administrator who is responsible for getting a handle on device and application growth and usage on their network:

• Is a guest downloading movies using Bit-Torrent – in other words, stealing valuable airtime away from my mission-critical applications?
• What are my top users and applications?
• Can I prioritize business-class applications and de-prioritize the applications such as Netflix?
• Do I need more Access Points?

So how is Cisco AVC going to help on your wireless network access points?
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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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In Part 6 of our NetFlow V9 overview series, I will be talking about the Cisco routers that support NetFlow and the IOS releases that you need to be deployed on to get NetFlow configured.

In this blog series we have seen how the NetFlow packets are delivered to the collector and what is contained within each packet. Now let’s take a look at the devices that we can export flows from. While the focus has been on Cisco devices, many new vendors have come on board with new template exports using NetFlow v9 or IPFIX that drastically enhance what was seen with NetFlow v5.

Here is a list of some Cisco devices that support NetFlow and whether they can be configured with traditional, Flexible NetFlow, or both.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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In Part 4 of our NetFlow Overview series, I will be discussing the NetFlow Data Flowset.  In Part 3 Joanne discussed the NetFlow Packet Template FlowSet and what is contained within. The templates tell the collector what information is being exported by the device. The Data FlowSet records contain values which correspond exactly to the definitions in the corresponding template. Without the template information the collector would just throw the records away.

Early NetFlow versions all have fixed formats which cannot be changed or added to. So no new or optional information can be exported by these formats (eg, these can’t export IPv6 or any new metrics such as jitter and packet loss or application definitions).  In NetFlow version 9 and IPFIX the template mechanism is flexible and expandable: the exporter simply sends a template containing the new fields, which tells the collector exactly what information the device will be exporting.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Last week, Joanne started a series of blogs aimed at providing an overview of some NetFlow basics. I am going to continue this series and take a look at what can be found in the NetFlow Packet header.

Built by a device (for example, a router) with NetFlow services enabled, the NetFlow export packet is addressed to a NetFlow collector. The collector processes the packet and stores the information found in the IP flow records.

The NetFlow record format consists of a packet header followed by at least one or more template or data FlowSets.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Did you know that using an advanced network reporting solution you can log NAT and firewall events from a Cisco ASR router to a flow collector, and report on this data using NetFlow v9?

I’ve been working with a service provider that deploys ASR1006 routers at his ISP’s internet Edge.  They use private IP addressing which is NATed at the internet edge network.  This allows scaling of IP addressing such that if they ever have more subscribers than available public IP address space they are not limited.  The problem that this presents is that his country has regulations where government authorities ask that ISPs identify a subscriber based on IP address and time provided by authorities to the ISP. So he needed some reporting that would provide this visibility. Read more »

Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Microsoft email reporting solutions are an important proactive responsibility that is often not addressed in many companies.

Who are the top email senders and receivers?
What are the top domains sending or receiving emails?
What are the top email subjects and who is involved with these emails?

The answers to these questions can be found in Mailinizer.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Yes, you heard it right! Cisco has added support for the sFlow standard in the latest NX-OS 5.0(3)U4(1) release for Nexus 3000 Series switches.

The Nexus 3000 series are the first Cisco switches to include hardware support for sFlow, offering scalable wire-speed monitoring of all traffic flowing throughout entire networks of Nexus 3000 series switches.

Since the Nexus 3000 series switches are the first Cisco products with sFlow, many Cisco network administrators experienced with using Cisco’s NetFlow technology for monitoring TCP/IP traffic may likely be unfamiliar with sFlow technology.

Based on the name, you might think that sFlow is just another version of Cisco NetFlow.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Earlier this year Barracuda Networks enabled IPFIX support on their NG Series firewalls. This export provides great visibility into your network traffic as well as network Threat Detection.

Let’s take a moment to go over the configuration to get these exports going:

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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Sign up for Advanced NetFlow Training™ coming to a city near you!

Network Address Translation reporting is now available from NetFlow exported from the Cisco ASA.

The traditional NetFlow reporting that can be done from the Cisco ASA is great. But have you noticed that when your firewall NATs an address, it becomes the source or destination within your flows, and thus makes NetFlow a lot less useful.

How can you tell who this conversation is going to when the destination address is NAT’d?

We are one of the only flow analysis technologies that can currently report on the non-traditional,  unique NSEL elements being exported, such as username, NAT, ACLs, and event codes.

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

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How do you configure your NetScaler to gain insight into your network using AppFlow and an advanced NetFlow analyzer to collect user-session level information? This information is invaluable for application performance monitoring, analytics, and business intelligence applications.

 

 

 

 

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Scott Robertson
Sr. Solutions Engineer

For a free 30 day trial of Scrutinizer, Download Now!

Sign up for Advanced NetFlow Training™ coming to a city near you!