ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer at Cisco LIVE 2012, London
Cisco has
proved time and again, that it leads the market in both thought and action.
Cisco LIVE, that started off as a networkers conference way back in 1989, has
come a long way for more than 2 decades, as the biggest networking event in the
world. It is one of the most sought after shows in the networking industry.
The 2012
edition of Cisco LIVE, scheduled to start Jan 30, 2012 at London, features some key players
in the networking business. With budget cuts & optimization of resources
being the buzzwords, businesses are vying to adopt the latest products to boost
their network performance & hence boost productivity.
NetFlow Analyzer from ManageEngine, is a product that supports a whole lot of technologies from Cisco and has evolved itself as an inevitable tool for network Administrators to gain in-depth visibility into their network. NetFlow Analyzer has aligned itself with Cisco in the following areas:
- NetFlow
- Cisco ASA-NSEL
- Cisco NBAR
- Cisco CBQoS
- Cisco IPSLA
- Cisco WAAS
- Cisco MediaNet
It is easily
the one product that has spread its wings into critical areas like QoS, SLA,
rich media traffic monitoring etc. and that makes it THE tool to deploy in your
network environment.
NetFlow Analyzer is a 'Registered Developer' in the Cisco Developers Network. In the areas of IPSLA, WAAS and NetFlow technologies, we are 'Cisco Compatible' and we are also an official 'Technology Partner' of Cisco.
We are glad
to be present at Cisco LIVE 2012, in London at booth E81/84. Connect with us
and get all your questions answered about NetFlow Analyzer and its alignment
with Cisco.
Follow NetFlow_geek on twitter & NetFlow Analyzer TAC on Facebook for more updates.
You could also talk to us using our LinkedIn community, Bandwidth Monitoring & Traffic Analysis for Enterprises
Source and Destination Tab – Some questions Answered
Source/Destination tab helps find the traffic from an individual host passing through a specific interface. The Source table will group all the source IP address in the conversation and the total traffic contributed by that host will be displayed. You can further drill down to an IP address/host to view the destination host with the application used and the amount of traffic transferred. This would be the same for Destination tab also.
Many customers have doubts regarding the IP that is shown as the top contributor under the conversations tab is not the top contributor in the Source/Destination tab. This is because, the conversations tab lists every conversation happened whereas the Source/Destination tab will group those conversations based on Source/Destination IP address. When grouping is done, the top IP in the conversation might have less traffic compared with the other IP address. So, combining the conversations results in traffic difference in this tab.
This tab accounts for the IN and OUT traffic of an interface separately. For example let’s assume there is traffic coming IN from the Internet to your LAN and you are monitoring your WAN Interface, the Source IN will be the public network IP Address and the Destination IN will be your LAN IP.
If traffic is from your LAN to the internet through WAN interface the Source OUT will be your LAN IP and the Destination OUT will be the internet IP.
Source/Destination Tab in IP Groups:
The function of these tabs will be the same but there will be no IN or OUT. This is because the accounting of traffic is different from the Interfaces. In a conversation if the destination IP address matches with the credentials for that IP Group, this conversation will be accounted as IN traffic for that IP groups. Similarly, if the Source IP matches it will be accounted as OUT traffic.
Therefore in the Source tab will be accounting the Source IP address from which the destination is contacted and the Destination tab will show the IP addresses to which the groups was trying to communicate.
Hope this helps.
You could also visit us at booth #E81/E84 ICC London ExCeL at Cisco Live, London between January 30 – February 3, 2012.
Join us on twitter @NetFlow-geek
Reach us on Facebook at NetFlow Analyzer TAC
Catch up with the latest updates in the industry, through our LinkedIn community Bandwidth Monitoring and Traffic Analysis for Enterprises
Arun Karthik Asokan
NetFlow Analyzer Technical TeamDownload | Interactive Demo | Twitter | Customers
NetFlow Analyzer on NetworkWorld ‘Products of the week’ listing
It is another milestone for NetFlow Analyzer to get listed in the prestigious ‘Products of the Week’ list of www.networkworld.com on Jan 9th, 2012.
‘NetworkWorld’ is the bible of the networking industry and their listings & ratings draw a lot of attention among networking professionals. A lot of parameters like product features, value for money, continuous feature enhancements and utmost commitment to providing a quality product that meets customer requirement, has made our entry into the coveted list possible.
The amount of visibility that NetFlow Analyzer gives into the network, at an affordable cost, is simple unprecedented from all perspectives. Apart from performing the primary function of bandwidth monitoring & traffic analytics, the recent addition of Cisco Medianet reporting has thrown open a new dimension into tomorrow’s networks. With increasing volume of media traffic in the network, a wholesome perspective is more than essential for efficient use of available bandwidth.
Take our 30-day free trial here.
You could also visit us at booth #E81/E84 ICC London ExCeL at Cisco Live, London between January 30 – February 3, 2012.
Join us on twitter @NetFlow-geek
Reach us on Facebook at NetFlow Analyzer TAC
Catch up with the latest updates in the industry, through our LinkedIn community Bandwidth Monitoring and Traffic Analysis for Enterprises
Sai Sundhar
NetFlow Analyzer Team
Applications tab – Some questions answered
Some frequently answered questions of the Application, Source and Destination tabs in NetFlow Analyzer have been handled in this blog.
Our primary focus would be on the ‘Applications’ tab which displays information on the applications used in the link along with the amount of data handled by that particular application and the bandwidth consumption involved.
NetFlow Analyzer maps the application on the basis of the port and protocol used in a conversation. Application mapping is done by prioritizing the lower port number used in a conversation. We cannot map the application name based on source/destination port number. For example,
Src IP Dst IP SrcPort DstPort Protocol
192.168.90.12 172.16.100.19 88 443 TCP
In the mentioned conversation, NetFlow Analyzer checks if any application has already been mapped for port 88 failing which it checks for the port 443 and maps under HTTPS.
Applications contributing more than 1KB of data is stored in the historic tables.
Why Application showing '_App'?
NetFlow Analyzer have 10000 Application names stored in its database. Any application that falls out of this category will be categorized as '_App', based on the protocol used.
This is why '*' is displayed for the port number in the ‘Conversation’ tab when the time period selected is more than 6 hours.
In such cases, clicking on show ports, based on which the corresponding application can be found and added through Application / QoS Mapping --> Add. The ‘Show Ports’ will be available within 24 hours of collection of data.
Why is the drilled amount of traffic less?
In some applications, the amount of
traffic shown in the Application tab on drilling down will be less.
This is because the drill down for an Application is queried from the
conversations table which stores the top 100 records of unique
conversations. If the conversation corresponding to a given
application does not fall in the top 100, then it will not be
displayed in the conversation table. This is exactly why the
discrepancy occurs.
Hope this helps.
Arun Karthik Asokan
NetFlow Analyzer Technical TeamDownload | Interactive Demo | Twitter | Customers
NetFlow Analyzer for ISP's : Assure fair & accurate billing
Why ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer?
ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer is the only tool which does NetFlow, sFlow , IP FIX, jFlow, AppFlow analysis for bandwidth monitoring and has billing module integrated with it to make ease of billing process.
Earlier ISP's used SNMP based tools to calculate monthly data from customer’s edge router (called as CPE's) and then manually calculate the bill based on 95th percentile or volume of data used. This manual process was very time consuming and tedious for the Network Administrator who is responsible for monitoring activities.
Birth of NetFlow based traffic analysis made this process easy and provided in-depth visibility to network traffic across that router.
NetFlow Billing:-
NetFlow data has highly granular information about the source and destination involved with the traffic, the application used, the traffic volume and so on.
NetFlow Analyzer with its Billing module gives real-time information on bandwidth consumption using NetFlow data which gives the enterprises and ISPs the ability to plan and manage their network infrastructure better.
Even if your customer or client asks for details about a bill you presented for charge back, the requested information is not just at your fingertips, but highly professional, neatly formatted, detailed PDF reports which are presentable to back-up your bills.
We have discussed much on ISP and Enterprise Billing in our earlier blogs
Scenario :-
As an ISP or MSP monitoring the typical network as given in below mentioned diagram, we as Manage Engine NetFlow Analyzer TAC team help you with this blog to make sure how you can effectively use NetFlow Analyzer to monitor the devices and bill them based on usage.
First Approach:-
You can enable NetFlow on the each customer CPE equipment and monitor only the WAN interface in NetFlow Analyzer and create bill plan for each customer and associate the corresponding WAN interface.
Second Approach :-
If you do not have control over CPE's on Customer edge, Monitor the Intermediate router WAN interfaces and create IP group with customer’s IP network or range and associate the corresponding interface of Intermediate router to which they are connected. Then create Bill Plan for each customer and associate the corresponding IP group.
Analyzing Live Video Performance using NetFlow Analyzer
With highly advanced technology development, the overhead on Network Administrators in ensuring prompt delivery of business critical applications over the WAN is very high. Video conferencing is predominantly taking place in major organizations for a variety of reasons like less cost, more productivity and a whole lot of advantages it can offer.
Video conferencing will take place between different branch
locations within the same country or over the WAN between different countries. A
Network Administrator needs to ensure smooth conferencing of video and avoid
undesirable factors such as delay, packet loss and jitter, which are most
likely to hamper the quality of the video.
In general, the Network Administrator would adjust bandwidth allocation in order to handle quality related issues for media rich traffic. With Cisco Medianet, this task has become really simple as the networks get intelligent enough on their own. To ensure effectiveness of the changes that have been made on the network.
Video traffic Quality Monitoring:-
Network Administrators can now easily configure their devices for video traffic monitoring through Medianet and Mediatrace reports of NetFlow Analyzer.
The illustration shows a video conferencing between 2 sites over WAN for about 4 hours, NetFlow Analyzer is used to monitor live video traffic between these 2 sites to know the performance over WAN.
Medianet and Mediatrace Report from NetFlow Analyzer:
We have not stopped with this, In our next release, you won't need to create monitors for Medianet and Mediatrace reporting. We have brought in a feature called On Demand report in which you specify the session details and continue monitoring the media rich traffic in real time basis.
For 30 Day Trial, click Download now.
Thanks and Regards
Praveen Kumar
Being the year end, we at NetFlow Analyzer decided to hand pick some of our blogs and videos and present you with the top blogs and videos for 2011. Here goes the list…
Blogs
Videos
The mood seems to be very light and happy. Its holiday season and
let us try to do away with the conventional things that we normally talk about.
It is that time of the year when we put an end to things and gear up for a
fresh start.
It is that time of the year when a lot of us introspect what we
wanted at the beginning of this year and how much of it has been achieved. This
kind of an analysis certainly helps in making our lives better. The bottomline
of all of this is that, we normally have the tendency to rely on the past and
plan for the future, the same way we generate ‘Capacity Planning’ reports in
NetFlow Analyzer.
Our networks are the way we made them and it is very natural to
draw some comparisons to real life. We have made them as a result of our
thinking and imagination. We are living at a time where geography is not a
barrier for business. It does not really matter where we are located, thanks to
the advent of telepresence and video calls. To ensure seamless
connectivity, the IPSLA module helps a great deal.
The Enterprises slowly but surely did away with the concept of
time. Had Einstein lived today, the true color of relativity would have been
right in front of him. When it is morning in the India centre, it is afternoon
in Hongkong office and midnight in the sales office in the US. Time does not
even matter for running business. It is an era of 24x7 working environment. No
matter what, the quality of service has to be maintained at least to the
minimum of standards for a ‘good’ from your management and the maximum for a ‘very
good’ and the optimum for a ‘fantastic’ (which never really happens). Our CBQoS reports try to make it happen for you so that your paycheck as a Network
Administrator goes up.
Just like we have a first aid kit at every place we are, be it our
car or office or home, to be prepared to face any anomalies of network health
is important. The security analytics reports help a great deal in this
direction.
These are simple real-life analogies to some key features of
NetFlow Analyzer. Clearly, they measure up to some important things in real life
that one cannot ignore. To overlook any of these aspects in either your network
or your life, could and would spell nothing but trouble.
So, it is now time to put to the best use, the resources you have
in life for a fruitful 2012 and exploit every feature in NetFlow Analyzer for a
smooth, healthy and an effective 2012 for your network.
Wishing all very happy holidays!
The growth in video traffic has been tremendous, especially in the last two years. More enterprises are turning to rich media based communications to cut costs involved in traveling and also to improve business relationships.
According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, Internet video traffic has occupied 40% of the consumer Internet traffic and is expected to reach a whopping 50% by 2012. The sum of all forms of video (TV, video on demand [VoD], Internet, and P2P) will continue to be approximately 90 percent of global consumer traffic by 2015.
Also, 19.7 percent of top Managed Service Providers (MSP) offer video conferencing and telepresence services to customers; and 12.7 percent of top MSPs offer managed video surveillance services to customers. To meet with the growing expectation in rich media traffic and provide users with the best possible video experience, MSPs need tools that make video monitoring possible.
Cisco Medianet is an intelligent network optimized for rich media traffic to enhance user experience while reducing complexity and operating costs involved. It helps you to detect and troubleshoot issues related to different media and application types like telepresence, video surveillance, desktop collaboration, and streaming media to deliver the best experience. Medianet can automatically detect and configure media endpoints along with detecting and responding to changes in device, connection, and service availability.
Cisco Medianet reporting on NetFlow Analyzer enables you to monitor the quality of video traffic to give you a rich user experience. Medianet reports from NetFlow Analyzer provide in-depth visibility into your network bandwidth consumption patterns with regards to rich media traffic like video traffic. The Medianet Reports makes troubleshooting simple thereby helping you save time and money. So go ahead and make your 2012 wish list for a hassle-free media experience. Let the Jingle Bells ring!
Corp