If you are seeking a good understanding of NetFlow, or a better understanding of how it can be enabled, configured, and analyzed, the “Commercial NetFlow Applications” chapter from the book Digital Forensics for Network, Internet, and Cloud Computing can be a great resource.  Written by Mike Patterson of Plixer International, Inc., the chapter details NetFlow and explains how you can capitalize on its utilization. Read more »

If you’re a faithful follower of our blogs, then you are familiar with the “samplicator” described in Michael Patterson’s “Free NetFlow Forwarder or NetFlow Duplicator” blog from May 29th, 2010.

If you’re not familiar with this NetFlow Forwarder application and you have the need for exporting NetFlow packets to multiple (unlimited!) collectors, then you must read his blog.

With switches or routers that do not support NetFlow export to more than one NetFlow collector, or if you have the need to export to more than the typical two collectors, the samplicator is an ideal solution.

Configuration is quick and easy and, if using the config file to list source (exporters) and destinations (collectors), extremely scalable.

Read more »

You’re in the market for a NetFlow Traffic Analyzer.  What are the key features that you’re looking for?  What makes one NetFlow analyzer stand out from the rest?  Do you have a list of “must haves”?

Such as support for Flexible NetFlow, IPFIX reporting, portable network maps?  How about automated NetFlow configuration on your routers and switches?  Is customization of the web interface important to you?  Multiple language support critical?
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I was talking with our newly appointed Pre-Sales Support Specialist, Scott, the other day when we realized that we don’t have a NetFlow Glossary blog, so I wanted to take this opportunity to consolidate some resources and highlight some of the key NetFlow terminology that we find ourselves talking about on a daily basis.

NetFlow Terminology:

Bidirectional Flows
Flexible NetFlow
Ingress vs. Egress
Interface 0
ip-flow timeout active 1
IPFIX
ip route-cache flow vs. ip flow ingress
NBAR
NetFlow Collector and Analyzer
NetFlow Exporters
NetFlow Options Templates
NetFlow Probe
NetFlow Replicator
NetFlow v5 vs. v9
NSEL
sFlow

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For most of the last year I have been working as a member of the  Technical Support Team here at Plixer International. But as of July 1st, I have moved from Technical Support to a Pre-Sales Support role on the Sales Team. In my new role I will be responsible for providing technical support for all pre-sales/evaluating customers.

I just want to say that it has been a pleasure working with the many customers that I’ve talked to over the last year. I wish you all much success in your Network Admin/IT endeavors.

If you are new to the NetFlow technology, I would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of using NetFlow and our network analysis tool to open windows into what is going on over your network. The following information is made available via the flow packets: source IP address, destination IP address, source port number, destination port number, protocol type, type of services, and the router input interface.

Exporting flows to a NetFlow collector provides a deeper level of detail that was up to this point unavailable in network management. This type of information has proven invaluable in detecting worms, port scans, DDoS attacks, and other security threats and network misuse.

Read more »

Okay, back to the basics. We’ve been working with Cisco NetFlow technology for many years now, but what is NetFlow?

NetFlow is a traffic profile monitoring technology developed by Darren Kerr and Barry Bruins at Cisco Systems, back in 1996. At that time, network monitoring mostly consisted of seeing how much traffic was traversing your network, but did not include what that traffic was.
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My daughter recently started a temporary Marketing position here at Plixer. And as with most people when they get their first job, she was very nervous about the new environment she would be coming into.

Adding to her nervous tension was the opportunity to see and meet Mix Master Mitch in person.

While I would not lump her in with the usual NetFlow maniacs that follow Mitch from town to town, I am sure she was aware of his superstar status and had seen the Mix Master’s videos (who hasn’t?). For the first few days, she would try to avoid the famous artist for fear of embarrassment. It wasn’t until Mitch left an autographed 8×10 on her desk that she finally was able to relax around the Rap legend.

Don’t miss your chance to see Mitch and his NetFlow posse live as the tour heads out to sunny Las Vegas next week for Cisco Live!

Stop by the Plixer booth and let the team show you how our NetFlow and sFlow Analysis Tool provides the best custom reporting engine on the market today, supporting leading edge techologies like Cisco ASA, Flexible NetFlow, IPFIX, and NBAR.

Put our network monitoring and analysis tools to work for you today.

Give us a call – (207) 324-8805

-Scott

I spent last week at SHARKFEST in Palo Alto, California.  The folks at Cace Technologies did a great job organizing the event.  The kick off presenter was Van Jacobson who was the creator of spiffy utilities like traceroute and tcpdump.  Read more »

Come see Plixer International (Booth #960) at Cisco Live at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas June 27 – July 1, 2010.

What a great opportunity to meet several of the Plixer Team members, including:

• MMM (Mix Master Mitch), our renowned NetFlow Rapper
• Michael Patterson, Product Manager
• Jon Mills, Marketing Manager
• Nathan Halverson, blogger extraordinaire!

3 NEW features will be highlighted with live demos of our NetFlow Analyzer.  Maybe we’ll show off our IPFIX and NetFlow Probe abilities?

Come see why our sFlow and NetFlow Collector are different from the rest for network traffic monitoring.

- Joanne

I worked with Brad Reese and some of our internal engineering folks to put this post together on a Free NetFlow Forwarder or NetFlow Duplicator called “The Samplicator”.  Read more »