Recently Mark Leary, wrote a blog about the “Top Ten IOS Services You Should Be Using Now!” In the blog he talks about some of the key high-value IOS services that can go unnoticed and unused by network operators.

Plixer International can help you put a number of these services to work for you by providing the best network analysis and reporting tools available on the market today.

We have talked for a long time about the benefits of using Cisco IPSLA as a proactive method of reliably measuring network performance. Raul Duran wrote a series of blogs talking about the use of IPSLA operations, and believes that IPSLA should be a part of every Network Administrator’s toolbox. Using our SNMP Performance and Trending tool, data can be retrieved and trended, enabling users to graph performance over time.

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Plixer International, your team of friendly neighborhood NetFlow specialists, has just released the newest version of Flowalyzer, our NetFlow and sFlow configuration tool. In addition to some performance and usability enhancements, version 2.0 adds a new tab to the Flowalyzer interface.

Flowalyzer version 2.0 introduces The Trender

The latest addition to the Flowalyzer tool is the Trender tab, which creates graphs for critical Windows resources, all done in real-time (a configurable update period that defaults to once every second). The Trender uses SNMP information gathered from your compliant gear to measure metrics from interface utilization to CPU or memory consumption. There is no limit to the number of metrics you can trend simultaneously (aside from the obvious limitation of screen real estate).

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In case you haven’t noticed, NetFlow support for Cisco ASA firewalls is a hot topic around here lately. Since Mike helped you get NetFlow configured using ASDM 6.2 on your Cisco ASA, I thought I might blog about how to configure SNMP on your Cisco ASA using ASDM.

The first order of business is to navigate to the screen shown below:

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When we visit our local doctor, sometimes we don’t always agree with what they have to say. Sure, we didn’t go to medical school and we don’t have a fancy degree on our wall. But heck, it’s our body and once in a while we know something just isn’t right. So what do we do? We get a second opinion. The same concept is important in almost any part of life – even network management. Sometimes something just doesn’t seem right, and we need to get a second opinion before we blindly trust what our hardware and software is telling us.

For years, Plixer (yes, even in our Somix days) has been using an excellent free tool called GetIf for walking MIBs and verifying SNMP information. It allows support technicians and users to verify device settings and configurations. It’s important to have these small, but incredibly useful, tools on hand. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned during setup, the first question to ask is always, “Is it the software or is it the hardware?” When helping customers and evaluators setup Denika Performance Trender to monitor their SNMP enabled devices, GetIf has always been invaluable in helping answer that question.

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Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreements (SLAs) help network administrators ensure that a high level of voice and data communication quality is maintained. Cisco IP SLA operations are a proactive method of reliably measuring network performance. IP SLA data can be retrieved and trended with an SNMP Performance trender to enable users to graph performance over time. Cisco IP SLA and SNMP should be in the tool belt of every network administrator. Pair these technologies with a NetFlow analyzer and you’ve got a great setup to help troubleshoot most network problems.

The purpose of this blog is to outline some of the IP SLA configuration changes in newer versions of Cisco’s IOS.

We’ve written a 4-part blog in the past that focuses on the following IP SLA operations:

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“Why don’t I see my VLAN traffic?”  was the question one of our customers asked me the other day. Although other Cisco models were exporting flows properly, it seemed that all of his Cisco 7600s were under reporting traffic.

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If you use both our Scrutinizer NetFlow Analyzer and Denika Performance Trender tools to help meet your network management goals, you can integrate some of the Denika functionality into Scrutinizer.

This integration can include a link directly from the Status page of Scrutinizer to the Denika reports for a device. You can also use Denika reports in Scrutinizer maps.

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Need a quick check of bandwidth utilization on a router interface? How about SNMP Traffic Grapher (STG)? It’s available for free download on our support site under Free Tools.

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I was trying to find some real meat and potatoes on the differences between IPFIX and Cisco NetFlow v9. In my searches I kept coming back with an empty plate.

This is one of those times where I had to roll up my sleeves, dig into the RFCs and actually find out for myself.

A word about the RFCs
You probably already know that IPFIX RFC 5101 and RFC 5102 are derived from the NetFlow version 9 RFC, which was written by Benoit Clais, a business friend of mine. Actually, you’ll notice that Benoit worked on the IPFIX RFCs as well. Anyway and more to the point, what makes them different? I wanted some specifics!

The chicken or the egg?
NetFlow v9 came first. IPFIX made provisions for NetFlow v9 and added support for it. This is not a tough one to figure out if you look at the RFC numbers.  heh heh  Anyway, IPFIX lists an overview of the “Information Element identifiers” that are specified in Section 5 of the RFC and are compatible with the “field types” used by NetFlow v9.  These are basically the juicy details of information that can be exported by NetFlow. Some things you will notice right away:

• The very first ID ’1′ NetFlow v9 calls it ‘IN_BYTES’ and IPFIX calls it ‘octetDeltaCount’.  This is a big deal because if we are talking about flows, is IN_BYTES really inbound data?
• Another thing I noticed is that NetFlow v9 defines 79 ‘field types’ and IPFIX defines the same 79, but goes on up to 238! Wow.
• Many of the Reserved Information Element identifiers are actually defined in NetFlow v9 (e.g. NetFlow v9 field type 3 is defined as ‘Flows’ and in IPFIX it is ‘Reserved’).  This is common when comparing the RFCs. NetFlow v9 defines field types 33, 34, 38, 39, etc with values. The same field types are all defined as ‘Reserved’ in the IPFIX RFCs. It was likely done to keep IPFIX compatible with NetFlow v9 (i.e. the chicken).
• IPFIX allows a vendor ID to be specified whereby the vendor can stick proprietary information into NetFlow and export anything they want and this isn’t limited to just SNMP information. I MEAN ANYTHING!
• IPFIX allows for variable length fields and NetFlow doesn’t.  This is useful if you want to export URLs like the nBox.
• NetFlow v9 on the other hand supports Flexible NetFlow which arguably is equally as flexible as IPFIX.  More on this later.

So, there you have it (i.e. some meat and potatoes).  I could really dig in and blog in detail about the differences even more, but maybe I will later.  At first I have to digest the above. 

Oh, here is the NetFlow v9 format.

FYI: Updated blog on 9/3/2011 that is related to this topic titled IPFIX Information Elements Vs. NetFlow Elements.

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Yet again, it’s raining here in Maine. I think it has been raining for four days straight and now I’m beginning to get a little antsy to see some sunshine.

Usually, I don’t watch the Weather Channel. I just take every day as it comes and adapt to the weather. If I wake up and it’s rainy and cold, I wear something warmer. If it’s bright and sunny, I wear a t-shirt.
I’m simple that way.

But when we have a run in weather like this, I ask myself: “When is this going to end?!?”
That’s when I break out of my normal habit and check the forecast for the next couple days. I must admit, there is a sense of peace knowing that the rain SHOULD end by tomorrow night.

Much like monitoring the weather, you can use SNMP to monitor your daily, weekly or even monthly traffic statistics to help you project what tomorrow may bring.

Notice the Port Utilization graph shown above: Not only does it provide statistics based on current data collected, it also estimates future projections based on your current trend using those strike lines.

With limiting budgets, it’s more difficult to rationalize spending on a new DS3 circuit for the company. However, network performance monitoring applications, such as Denika, make life easy by forecasting network growth, so that you can see a problem before it ever begins.

Think about this: Would you feel better knowing that tomorrow was always going to be a bright and sunny day?