SUNY Geneseo Network Manager Rick Coloccia found that analyzing Cisco NetFlow packets was the key to network traffic management and monitoring internet use and abuse.

Using Scrutinizer NetFlow Analyzer, he was able to respond to the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) allegations of students illegally downloading or sharing of music.
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Any internet service providers out there interested in MPLS NetFlow reports for network traffic analysis? I was reading this document on NetFlow MPLS Label Export and thought it might be interesting data to report on. Read more »

Michael Patterson
Scrutinizer Product Manager
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The following article, “Scrutinizer Brings Flow Analytics to SMBs“, written by David Diaz, was recently featured on TechCrunchIT.

David points out that with the low initial cost for Scrutinizer NetFlow & sFlow Analyzer, it is a very affordable Flow Analytics solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

This flow analysis tool can also be deployed centrally and accessed globally via the web interface.  What this means is that one install of Scrutinizer can provide network management information for your entire network and accessible by everyone on the network management team, regardless of geographical location.

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When was the last time you used a Network General Sniffer™?  Do you remember the Matrix view? Read more »

Michael Patterson
Scrutinizer Product Manager
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If you put a price tag on network monitoring for your organization, what would it be? $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000?

And what needs to be included in that price? Staff to support the network? Network Monitoring hardware and software? Office space to house the staff and equipment?
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Reporting on QoS using NetFlow is a fairly rudimentary report for even the most basic NetFlow reporting tools.  Although the name of this report differs from vendor to vendor, we are all talking about the same 8 bit ToS field of an IP datagram.  Sometimes mistakenly referred to as DSCP, this 1 byte value is used in an effort to help ensure end to end QoS flow for select business applications. Read more »

Michael Patterson
Scrutinizer Product Manager
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Well it looks like our run of nice weather has ended here in Southern Maine. Saturday we had our first snow of the year. It was kind of a nice touch to be at a holiday party and have the snow falling outside. And then to wake up Sunday morning to find that the view outside your window is like that of a Currier and Ives winter print.

A couple of weeks ago I began a series of blogs that introduces you to the new Flow Analytic tools that are available with Plixer International’s latest NetFlow and sFlow analysis tool, Scrutinizer v7.3.

Today I will be introducing you to the third of the four new analytic tools now available with Scrutinizer v7.3. The Breach Attempt Violation looks for many small flows from one source to one destination. This can indicate things such as a “brute force” or “dictionary” attack. 

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After a lot of work, we have support in Scrutinizer v7.3 with Flow Analytics for NBAR with Flexible NetFlow.  My contact at Cisco Jean-Charles <below> gave us some help. I wish we had him as a resident Cisco NBAR and NetFlow expert.  Read more »

Michael Patterson
Scrutinizer Product Manager
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A user of a NetFlow reporting tool shouldn’t concern him or herself with whether or not the router or switch is exporting ingress, egress or both on a specific interface. Proper design of the NetFlow Analysis program should take this into account for the end user. Many NetFlow Analyzers exaggerate traffic if both ingress and egress is enabled. This can cause duplication of data and ultimately lead to trends that exaggerate the truth! Read more »

Michael Patterson
Scrutinizer Product Manager
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You have heard of all the benefits gained by using Scrutinizer v7 as your NetFlow analysis tool. You decide that you are going to make the move to enable Netflow on your Cisco 4500 Series Switch. Do you need a NetFlow Services Card to do so?

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