Analyzing change impact and network growth using NetFlow Analyzer

Change is inevitable, especially in the world of networking where capacity planning, new traffic routes, implementation of new QoS policies and so on has to happen at one point or another. But with enterprise networks, finding the impact of change and comparing the traffic pattern over time is as important as the change.

As a network administrator, you may have come across bonded T1 links that is under utilized and might have considered reducing the link capability, or you may see a Internet links which are fully utilized or you may even have implemented a new QoS or CoS policies in the network for better traffic management. When accessibility to business applications can be affected because of the changes or in some cases may even cause your network to grind to a halt, how would you track the impact of the implemented change? You may even want to confirm that the capacity downgrade you brought about did not have an adverse affect on the bandwidth utilization or compare the traffic pattern over a time period before even thinking of the downgrade. Some may even implement new network technologies at some low traffic branches before implementing them throughout the network and this calls for comparing the traffic behavior between the various branches.

As you already know, NetFlow (or similar flow technologies) is one of the best available for in-depth monitoring and detailed traffic analysis. There is nothing that can beat NetFlow to monitor networks without an impact on the monitored devices as well as on the network bandwidth and at the same time give detailed reports. NetFlow data can help analyze the interface traffic, the applications used, the conversations involved, source and destination of all the traffic and QoS data. NetFlow data can be exported in real time from supported routing or switching devices and this can be used to give real time bandwidth reports.

Now, how will you find the impact of change over the time period or compare the bandwidth behavior over time to decide if a capacity re planning has to be done? It is to help you with this requirement that NetFlow Analyzer has a feature called ‘Compare Reports’. Using this feature, you can compare interface traffic (based on volume, speed or utilization) over a time period and get a quick idea on bandwidth usage over time. Using this trend analysis on bandwidth pattern, you get to know if the interface utilization has been increasing steadily over time or if it has been remaining at some almost constant value. NetFlow Analyzer, stores traffic information forever and so you can even go back to a weekly comparison for the last 52 weeks and a monthly comparison for even the last 30 months in addition to hourly and daily reports.