We’ve been getting an increasing amount of requests asking how to monitor cloud services, Google Apps for example, and the impact they’re having on the network. In this blog I’ll discuss some of the different methods for identifying how much of your bandwidth is being consumed by Google.

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The topic of using Deep Packet Inspection to identify applications and exporting the details using defined Application IDs in NetFlow exports is a growing concern. The current direction of vendors is preventing interoperability and in some cases, the poor template designs and element selections are causing:
•    Slow query times
•    Excessive disk space consumption

The NetFlow Application ID draft by Claise, Aitken and Dvora tries to address this issue however, it is only meant to create discussion. We feel it is now time to address this issue.

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The Sonicwall NetFlow Analyzer supports not only most industry standard IP flow protocols such as sFlow, jFlow, NetFlow, Flexible Netflow, and IPFIX, but it also specializes in sonicOS NetFlow reporting. It is, in my opinion, the best way to get the most out of SonicOS NetFlow.

Besides the traditional flow octets delta count, source and destination ports and source and destination IP addresses; SonicWALL brings more to the table. SonicWALL NetFlow support was introduced in SonicOS 5.8. Some benefits include network planning and monitoring, application and user monitoring, security analysis and more. Read more »

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Occasionally we hear talk of bidirectional flows, deduplication, flow stitching and sometimes questions about RFC 5103 spring up. Today I’ll outline what these technologies are as well as the good and bad aspects of both.  Our NetFlow analyzer supports all of them.

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Move over JFlow, Juniper is now has supporting IPFIX.  Juniper IPFIX exports include some neat stuff that we didn’t see in JFlow.  If you are not aware, JFlow is basically a rename of NetFlow.  IPFIX is the proposed standard for NetFlow and is supported by vendors such as Cisco, Citrix, Extreme, nBox, Plixer and SonicWALL. How do you get IPFIX from your Juniper hardware?

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Plixer recently teamed up Mix Master Mitch and Hip-Hop sensation Jeffrey Ramsey “Flow Master.Pcap” to produce their latest music video about SonicWALL IPFIX and NetFlow Exports.  MMM passes the torch in his usual epic fashion. Check it out!

If you want to learn more about Jeffrey Ramsey, also known as Ya Fav Homie JR, visit his website or follow @YaFavHomieJR on Twitter.  However, any true NetFlow analysis aficionado should first be familiar with  the work of long-time NetFlow rap contributor Mix Master Mitch, which can be found on the NetFlow Rap fan page.  Most videos were produced by Real Media Solutions.

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We have 5 remote sites all using VoIP to access the company Asterisk PBX.  We monitor the health (e.g. Jitter, Packet loss, etc.) of their VoIP connections by reporting on the Cisco Performance Monitoring Flexible NetFlow exports.  We really appreciate the insight that this new Cisco Medianet technology provides.

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Since NetFlow is template-based, how does a collector know one template from another? The answer is simple, Intelligent Template Recognition ™. In short, a collector receives flows with packets and uses templates to decode the information in the packets. With Intelligent Template Recognition ™ it automatically knows how to name the templates. But how does the collector know how to name the template?

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I’m told that Riverbed® Cascade® Flow has introduced latency metrics to their NetFlow exports.  With this new information, we can possibly report on latency between hosts, application latency and even latency involving services in the cloud (i.e. Monitoring Cloud Performance).

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How dedicated is your company to using VoIP? Do you utilize remote employees who use VoIP or Video conferencing? Do you have any way to see exactly why your having choppy or low quality calls/videos? Everybody wants to have the best QoS for their calls or at the very least know why they don’t. With a VoIP Netflow Monitoring tool you are able to reactively monitor:

• Jitter
• Packet Loss
• Latency
• Round Trip Time (RTT)

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