IT Security : NetFlow, the proposed standard for network traffic analysis (when SNMP & Port Utilization just won’t cut it), has made leaps and bounds in Internet Security during the past few years. In part one of a two part series, I’d like to demonstrate Read more »

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Monitoring internet capable devices are becoming more necessary. It seems like every device that is released to the market supports internet connectivity. I have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of internet devices that university campuses have to monitor over the last few years. With all of these devices sprouting up, NetFlow monitoring is becoming much more essential for these educational institutions. Read more »

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Not long ago, Rich Tehrani from TMCnet sat down to interview our very own Product Manager Michael Patterson to talk NetFlow, IPFIX and the recent influx of mobile devices on corporate networks around the world. Mike is a technology entrepreneur who has spent the last 15 years chasing his passion of designing and implementing high value products that help manage networks, large and small. His projects include Read more »

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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! Read more »

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After reflecting on the last month here in tech support, I’ve noticed that some of our customers are not utilizing the NetFlow threats overview gadget in our product. Conveniently located under the MyView tab, this table comes ready to alarm on 37 different thresholds right outta’ the box. To me this is exciting stuff, but you’ve probably noticed at first glance it can seem like an overwhelming list. I will assure you that once properly configured it can be one of the best tools in your arsenal.

Overview of Threats

The MyView tab is NetFlow dashboard and is an integral part of Scrutinizer that I get positive feedback about every single day.  In this series of blogs we will cover all aspects of the threat overview, including settings, customization, detailed explanations of each threat and even how they can be avoided in the future.

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If you are a network administrator for a major retail business then you know the inherent challenge in network monitoring across many varied locations. When hundreds or even thousands of remote sites are involved, the troubleshooting process for determining outages, increased latency or various congestion issues becomes exacerbated. Adding to the complexity, sites down or on backup sometimes need to receive priority over others. That means certain outlets need to be addressed first. Typically a queue will be established based on revenue generation of each particular site. Either way, for network professionals using our NetFlow analysis solutions, critical issues become obvious when viewing the status of all sites.

Using the right flow monitoring tools can provide the insight necessary to determine what to work on first. NetFlow and IPFIX resources can compliment any other NMS systems to provide a holistic view. Metrics such as length of time down, response time, traffic volume and even sales volume all become factors when determining the overall health of a distant store. Each retail store becomes part of an overall health measurement, either regionally or company-wide.

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- What will be the main use for NetFlow?

- Is real-time reporting or historical reporting more important?

- Is it  traffic analysis including application and user monitoring?

- How much are you willing to pay for the product?

- Do your switches/routers support NetFlow?

- Is scalability a concern?

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Can I ask you something?  As the manager of the network I’m sure you and your team end up investigating a lot of potential threats. My question is: what is your guess as to the ratio of NetFlow alarms you investigate from your NetFlow tool to the number of calls you receive from a user on the network complaining about a problem?  In other words, are the canned (i.e. non custom) NetFlow detected alarms more helpful or are your own investigations and user complaints more helpful?

The reason I ask is because the lions share of the NetFlow case studies we write regarding NetFlow analysis experiences end up being related to problems found where an application was doing something it didn’t need to be or could be done at a different time of the day. Second to this would be viruses and botnets.  I feel that good reporting and filtering in a NetFlow tool like we find in Wireshark packet analyzer is equally or more important to NetFlow Network Behavior Alarming.  I believe most people would agree that waiting for alarms that tell you the majority of problems on the network is wishful thinking.

I’m a big fan of creating custom behavior watches using saved reports. Many NetFlow Analyzers and this includes the expensive ones, don’t have good filtering and custom alarming abilities. I’ll digress further on this in another blog on NetFlow filtering.

Although our NetFlow tool constantly scans the flows for anomalous activity and alarms for it, most IT professionals using our tools are so busy, that they often only have time to respond to something very obvious in the dash board or generally react to telephone calls. Few people watch the alarm log or even respond to every alert because of the potential for an insignificant issue or they use the alarm log after they find a problem.

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To avoid  network headaches this holiday season: Read more »

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What if network maps were not just a graphical representation of physical connectivity on a network?  A map in our NetFlow and sFlow Analyser is more than just a map:

• You can view the utilization  of every NetFlow exporting interface on your map.
• Links on the map are clickable. This brings up a report on traffic information for that particular connection. Information including, utilization, protocols, applications, etc, the entire scrutinizer report arsenal is available.
• Connections change color based on definable utilization thresholds.
• Google Maps can be used as a background, allowing for large scale network map based on longitude and latitude.
• Device  Icons change color based on the device status.
• You can create links to other map applications (e.g. flash maps with Visio backgrounds, WhatsUp Gold, etc). Read more »

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