We have just released the general release of NFA 5.5 and now the question is "What next". Some of the ideas that we are thinking are:

1. Support for sFlow

2. Logical grouping of Applications. You could define your own Application Groups using a set of applications and have the option of viewing the Top Applications or Top Application Group. You can have a bunch of applications categorized as Class A, Class B and so on

3. Enhancements in ToS reporting

4. Alerting when a link is down or when no flow is received for more than X minutes.

Would love to hear from you about what more you would like to see.

Thanks

Raghu

Most of the requests and feedback that we have had in the last 6 to 9 months have been in the area of application visibility. We realized that application categorization based on just port and protocol was quite insufficient.

NetFlow Analyzer 5.5 Early Access provides a couple of new capabilities in this area:

1. We now have the capability to collect and report on Cisco NBAR data. Cisco NBAR does a deep packet inspection and aids in more intelligent application classification to recognize a host of application, including P2P and web applications, some of which use dynamic ports. Whats more? We also have the provision to configure NBAR data export on your routing devices from the NFA user interface.

2. Based on NetFlow data, you can now classify applications not just based on port and protocol - but also based on IP address / subnet. You can now create your own custom application (from the Application Mapping link) as - IP address 10.10.10.10 with port 80 TCP to be mapped to application custom1.

This is available for a free 30 day evaluation at

http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/netflow/ea/download.html

Try it and let us know if you have any suggestions or feedback..... or more feature requests ;)

Thanks

Raghu

We are going to be at Networkers 2006 - June 18-23, 2006 Las Vegas, NV, Booth 645. We expect to showcase the NetFlow Analyzer 5500 Early Access during this show. Drop in at our stall if you are planning to be there.

Now, thats one more reason to go to Las Vegas ;)

Thanks

Raghu

Visit http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le21/le34/networkers/nw05/networkers_2006.html for more information on Networkers 2006

We now have a fair amount of visibility into when the next release of NFA will happen. We have decided to call it NFA 5.5 Early Access and should be available around the 15th of June.

The features that this release will have are:

Major Features:

1. Support for netflow v9.

2. Support for Cisco NBAR.

3. Automatic scheduling and emailing of reports

4. Ability to associate IP address in Application Mapping (in addition to the Port-Protocol available now).

5. Grouping of interfaces and viewing traffic statistics on them

6. Reporting on ToS and TCP Flag.

Minor Features:

1. Configurable from address for alert emails

2. Configurable backup location for database backup

3. IP Groups sorted by name

Though we are in the final stages of development, we may still be in a position to take in small feature requests or bug fixes for this release. We would sure love to know if you have a request.

Please let us know if you would like to test drive the NFA 5.5 EA by sending a mail to support@netflowanalyzer.com so that we can inform you as soon as it is available.

Note: NFA 5.5 EA will not support migration from an earlier version. Migration, however, will definitely be available in NFA 5.5 General Release.

Note 2: The above plan and dates are targetted and there maybe minor changes due to various factors. :)

Thanks for your support

Raghu

The inputs we have got in What would YOU like to see in NFA 6 have been extremely useful and we are keen on ensuring that most of those get into NFA 6. We are thankful to each person who took the time to give those inputs.

We would also like to know what do you dislike most about our product. Might be as simple as the one we got recently "When I change the webserver or collector port in RunTime Administration, NFA does not pop a message that I need a server restart. I waited and waited and nothing changed".

We would like to know from you. After all, you guys helped us make this product as good as it is today. The bugs are all ours.

Do drop a line. The more you hate something the sooner we will change it ;)

Cheers

Raghu

We had a beta for NFA 5 because we wanted as many new users to use it before we went out with a stable release. We were simply amazed at the amount of feedback that we got and we thank each and everyone of you who helped us roll out a (relatively) more stable NFA 5.

If case you want to have access to the next beta (or early access) please send a mail to support@netflowanalyzer.com so that we can remember to notify you when it is available.

You can even suggest a nice name for this program ;)

Thanks

Raghu

On and off we get a request for supporting SQL Server.

Here is a classic example:

I can fully understand, but its just that we are trying to check if there are a lot of people who want SQL Server supported.

Would love to hear from you

Raghu

There has been a lot of requests for associating IP address in the Application Mapping. Currently we only allow applications to be defined based on port and protocol.

We are bringing in this feature in our next release, but would invite inputs on whether you would also like to see IP Range and IP Network (the same way as we currently provide in our IP Groups option) in addition to IP address.

Would love to hear from you

Thanks

Raghu

We released NFA 5 about 10 days back and these releases are followed by a week or so of low activitiy levels where nothing much happens. We were determined not to let this happen this time. We wanted to have about 2 weeks of low activity level.

Now seriously, we want to know:

what would you like to see in NetFlow Analyzer 6?

Your wish is our command ;)

Thanks

Raghu

We just made it easier for you to download NetFlow Analyzer. The product size of NetFlow Analyzer 5 is about 4.5 MB lesser than that of the earlier version.

As a bandwidth monitoring tool, the last thing we want to tool itself to use up too much bandwidth ;)

Raghu