Nagios is one of the more popular free network monitoring solutions that can be upgraded to a commercial version.  For years this community has depended on 3rd party NetFlow Analysis tools as a best of breed approach to a complete solution. Recently, Nick Scott at Nagios announced Nagios Network Analyzer which provides basic support for NetFlow v5, v7 and v9 however, it lacks support for all of the unique elements that can be exported by Flexible NetFlow and IPFIX.   What does this mean?

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Earlier this year, we had a customer call in asking why their sFlow trends showed under utilization compared to the SNMP trends on the same interfaces. I’ve run into this question what seems like countless times before.  Unlike NetFlow, configuring sFlow exports at a basic level requires that two things be exported:

Samples and Counters
When setting up a switch to export sFlow, make sure you export:

•  The packet samples (E.g. one in every 200 packets) on each interface
•  The interface counters which is what many admins forget to configure

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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.

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Things reportedly got kind of crazy today when what we think was a NetFlow Ninja(TM) popped into the Sanford, Maine offices of Plixer International. “He dropped down from the ceiling and handed me a letter demanding an nProbe,”  said Jon Mills, Marketing Manager for Plixer. “The freak was swinging a plastic sword and jabbing at my cubical walls. I nearly spilled coffee on my keyboard.”

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Join the NetFlow Developments group on LinkedIn.

I’m in the Rochester NY airport headed back to Boston MA.  I spent the day at the White Hat Security Day conference hosted by Mercury Networks.

What I thought was going to be a small conference ended up being attended by several hundred people.  Read more »

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Are you thinking about deploying a NetFlow Analyzer for network traffic analysis? Here are some of the top reasons to collect NetFlow.  If you are in the market for a NetFlow or sFlow reporting tool, this list of 10 reasons should help you with your decision. Read more »

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Bandwidth monitoring hasn’t been as big a concern for as long as some of us might think. Ethernet was founded in 1973 by Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs. Read more »

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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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Scrutinizer v7 for NetFlow and sFlow analysis has been released. This new version of our network traffic analysis solution is 100% free. Plixer’s new model is to build a business around the modules:

• Central Interface for Distributed NetFlow collectors
• Flow Analytics for Network Behavior Analysis and archiving of data.
• Service Provider Module for setting up per login permissions to see only certain data.

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When you are looking to track down a host using your Cisco NetFlow reporting tool, sometimes it helps to consider Source or Destination. What I mean by this is are you looking for the host creating the traffic or receiving the traffic?

Below are the top Internet hosts we are receiving traffic from on our T-1 for the last 5 minutes. Notice: Inbound & Src.

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