Wireless access use grows but where is sFlow and NetFlow?
Posted in NetFlow, sFlow on July 16th, 2009 by mike@plixer.com
Did you know that 50-90% of Ethernet ports go unused because wireless is so prevalent? Network World May 4, 2009 page 1: “By 2011, 70% of all new ports will be wireless,” says Michael King of Gartner (pictured, below right).
Wireless in the home
I built my first house in 1995 with 10BaseT to every room. My next house was built in 2004 with just a few wires for communications. My family couldn’t believe it. At home, I now use wireless for phones and Internet access. A few things are hard-wired, but not much. I use a Buffalo access point that is running firmware from Sveasoft, and it is exporting Cisco NetFlow v5. In the office we have a hybrid of hardware vendors sending a mixture of NetFlow and sFlow. Our wireless access point is made by Mikrotik, and it exports Cisco NetFlow technology.
Cisco Aironet Wireless Bridges and NetFlow
It surprised me that Cisco Aironet Wireless Bridges do not support NetFlow, and I couldn’t find anything that says they have plans. That’s weird. I did hear a rumor at Cisco Networkers 2009 that when Cisco puts IOS on its wireless access points, they will support NetFlow.
Xirrus Wireless access points support NetFlow
I do know of a wireless access point company competitor called Xirrus. It makes gear that exports NetFlow. I think this is important if companies are finding an increasing amount of wireless users. Some companies are not renewing hardware maintenance contracts on switches, in order to save money. It’s easy to justify with less than half the ports being used.
I’d like to see more hardware support NetFlow or sFlow in wireless access points. Peter Phaal at InMon wrote a memo with Jim Wendt of Hewlett-Packard on the sFlow and wireless access topic. Looks to be an extension of sFlow v5, but with some new cool stats. Nice work, InMon!
Apparently the HP ProCurve Wireless Access Point 530 NA supports sFlow, but the web page says it is end of life, and that the recommended product is the HP ProCurve MSM320 Access Point. But I can’t find anything that says it supports sFlow. Hmmm…
More than a year ago Paul Condon (pictured left) CTO of HP Procurve said HP routers would support NetFlow: “…NetFlow feature is an important transition technology for the refresh and we do have plans in our next software release to support NetFlow…” What happened Paul?
Please contact us if you want me to list a wireless access point on our web site that supports a flow technology.
Michael PattersonScrutinizer Product Manager
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Mike, don’t you think that the wireless aps from Cisco not supporting netflow is no different than their lack of support for other L2/L3 (i know, cisco doesn’t make a L2 switch anymore, you just don’t get all L3 features, right:)) devices such as switches from 29xx-45xx(some platforms)? I was pretty surprised when I found out the 3750s did not support netflow. Their wireless bridges I can see, as the name implies, L2 only. Maybe they will hear our cries for support !!