This is the second edition of the Adam Powers' NetFlow benefits series for the Cisco Subnet. Hopefully, you didn't miss the first one: Top 5 uses of NetFlow NetFlow’s popularity has increased tremendously over the past 2 years. Why? The simple answer: NetFlow provides visibility into areas of the network you can’t easily reach with traditional Ethernet sensors or inline devices. Three key emerging technologies are creating these "hard to reach" network locations: 1. MPLS and Multipoint VPN Technology Visibility problem: Fully meshed connectivity circumvents network monitoring deployed at the “hub” location. Traditional hub and spoke WAN topologies are easy to monitor. Packet pass through a central location and are available for packet inspection of all types. In this model all inspection technology can be centralized... Unfortunately, MPLS is changing the way WAN topologies work. Driven by VoIP (need for low latency) and lower costs, organizations are turning to MPLS to make their WAN management easier and more scalable. Given the below scenario, the two hosts can now communicate with one another directly, out of the line of sight of the IDS/IPS/packet inspector... Deploying sensors to each site is an option but gets extremely expensive very quickly. Pile on ping/power/pipe costs and the “sensor at every site” model becomes very unattractive... Instead of using distributed sensors at each remote site, consider enabling NetFlow. Most l ...
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This is the second edition of the Adam Powers' NetFlow benefits series for the Cisco Subnet. Hopefully, you didn't miss the first one: Top 5 uses of NetFlow NetFlow’s popularity has increased tremendously over the past 2 years. Why? The simple answer: NetFlow provides visibility into areas of the network you can’t easily reach with traditional Ethernet sensors or inline devices. Three key emerging technologies are creating these "hard to reach" network locations: 1. MPLS and Multipoint VPN Technology Visibility problem: Fully meshed connectivity circumvents network monitoring deployed at the “hub” location. Traditional hub and spoke WAN topologies are easy to monitor. Packet pass through a central location and are available for packet inspection of all types. In this model all inspection technology can be centralized... Unfortunately, MPLS is changing the way WAN topologies work. Driven by VoIP (need for low latency) and lower costs, organizations are turning to MPLS to make their WAN management easier and more scalable. Given the below scenario, the two hosts can now communicate with one another directly, out of the line of sight of the IDS/IPS/packet inspector... Deploying sensors to each site is an option but gets extremely expensive very quickly. Pile on ping/power/pipe costs and the “sensor at every site” model becomes very unattractive... Instead of using distributed sensors at each remote site, consider enabling NetFlow. Most l ...