An Overview of NetFlow

ImageNetFlow Operation

Whereas network protocols such as SNMP attempt to provide a very wide range of network management features and options, NetFlow is simple and specific in its mission: to as efficiently as possible provide statistics on IP packets flowing through network devices.

For instance, in Figure 19-6, host A connects to host B using some application (for instance, HTTP). NetFlow can monitor that application connection (counting packets, bytes, and so on) for that individual application flow. It can then push the statistics over to an external server called a NetFlow collector.

Figure 19-6 NetFlow in the Typical ...

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