Recently, I was asked by one of our long-time customers whether Plixer had abandoned its traditional Network Performance Monitoring & Diagnostics (NPMD) and Network Traffic Analytics (NTA) focus. They felt that since the acquisition of Plixer by Battery Private Equity several years ago, our product direction had pivoted towards the security-focused Network Detection and Response (NDR) market.
Read moreCategory: Network Operations
Client and server reports in Plixer Scrutinizer
Posted on - by Dylan Mclaughlin
In our new release of Scrutinizer version 19.1.0, we have included a handful of new reports that help to provide more information on the NetFlow collected from your network. These are the Client – Server reports, which can show directionality of requests and responses to give insight into who is asking for what and what kind of responses they get.
Read moreSearching NetFlow for a private host behind a NAT router
Posted on - by Ryan Slosser
Inbound traffic that is captured and exported as NetFlow by your NAT router only shows that the destination of the inbound internet traffic is your external IP address. But what if you want to know what private host initiated that traffic? Today, I’d like to go over how Plixer Scrutinizer can report on this traffic and expose the internal address of this traffic.
Read moreWhat is network traffic intelligence?
Posted on - by James Dougherty
With the onslaught of malware and cloud applications increasing, network traffic intelligence has become increasingly important. When an infection is unearthed and the incident response team moves in to figure out what exactly has happened, one of the first things they will do is request the logs, including the flow (NetFlow and IPFIX) data. Network and application issues are troubleshot in a similar way.
Read moreConfiguring sFlow on Arista devices
Posted on - by Khalil Ismayilov
Today I want to show you how to configure sFlow on your Arista device and demonstrate its featured output through Plixer Scrutinizer. Our goal is to define multicast flow on our switch.
Read moreConfiguring a network map
Posted on - by Ryan Slosser
The process of setting up a new network map has changed a bit in the newest Plixer Scrutinizer v19.1.0 release. Today, I’d like to go over setting up a new network map and configuring new connections between map objects.
Read moreCisco ISR4300 IPFIX configuration
Posted on - by Khalil Ismayilov
I recently helped a customer configure NetFlow on their ISR4300. I found that ISR43XX/44XX routers run IOS-XE, which only supports Flexible NetFlow (FNF). NetFlow is a Cisco technology that provides statistics on packets flowing through the router. It’s the standard for acquiring IP operational data from IP networks.
Read moreIntegrate your network alarms with Microsoft Teams
Posted on - by Jeff Morrison
2020 was a year of incredible change—changes that I believe will have a lasting impact, but also changes that require immense flexibility with traditional structure and workflows. This is observable in every industry, and ours is no different. Not only has the model of network traffic changed with a work-from-home model, but so has our ability to collaborate as a team. We moved from primarily being in the same physical room as our colleagues to now spending our time in virtual channels. One of the most widely adopted of these digital workspaces is Microsoft Teams.
With Teams being the primary space for collaboration, having a network monitoring solution like Plixer Scrutinizer post alarms to a dedicated Teams channel is an incredibly effective way of monitoring, tracking and assigning network events to team members for investigation. Let’s take a look at how easy it is to configure this integration within Scrutinizer.
Read moreCustom script-based sensor for PRTG
Posted on - by Khalil Ismayilov
Today I would like to explain how to create a custom script that sends specific information to PRTG as a sensor. Customers often ask me how to use PRTG to tack the uptime and downtime of Scrutinizer. So, what specific parameter needs to be set up so that the PRTG sensor would react immediately on it?
Read moreHow to improve response time for life-critical network events with Plixer Scrutinizer
Posted on - by Stephen Tutterow
The healthcare industry has been on red alert for more than a year now. Workloads have doubled and the amount of time required to maintain the network is in direct relation with this trend. Now, more than ever, beyond-perfect response times are a requirement, otherwise lives are on the line. Plixer’s healthcare customers use Scrutinizer to ensure they have a constant, real-time source of truth for the most common and most frustrating issues. This blog will focus on how to mitigate network slowdowns, improve overall visibility, and improve DNS visibility, one of the top challenges the healthcare industry faces today.
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