Netflow Technology (Essay Sample)

Netflow Technology
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Netflow Technology
Netflow technology is a feature initially incorporated in the Cisco IOS routers around 1996. Since its inception, it has been used by other networking companies. The technology provides the capability to collect IP network data as it enters or leaves an interface. By analyzing the data collected, the network administrator can understand several factors about the IP signal.
To start with, the administrator knows the source and destination of the traffic. They can also identify any course of congestion in case of any and the class of service offered. Netflow also indicates the source and destination port for User Data Protocol (UDP) or Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). It also shows the MAC source and destination, and importantly it shows the Min and Max Time-To-Live for data in a network. A net flow monitoring setup consists of: flow exporter, which consolidates packets into a flow and channels the flows into flow collectors. The flow collector acts as data storage and pre-processes the data sent from the flow exporter. Finally, it has an analysis application that analyses the flow of data indicating any instruction and showing all the traffic (Sarhan et al., 2020). The paramount importance of the setup is organizing data into a readable version and using applications to make sense of how the data behave while in the network.
Compared to other features similar to Netflow, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Netflow is comparing relatively better. This is because Netflow can perform better in measuring the collected performance in the IP networks. Additionally, Netflow is advantageous than SNMP because it monitors, analyzes, and shows the traffic flow, while SNMP is used for traditional network monitoring. Lastly, Netflow can provide more information on the bandwidth used since it allows the admin to see who uses specific bandwidth and what applications they are using. Using Netflow can increase the capacity planning of admins since they can use the data to pinpoint loops holes and improve bandwidth. It also helps in allocating internal billing account processes in big companies.
Netflow sits in the network layer, the third layer, of the OSI model. This is because the technology uses IP (Internet Protocol) to help the network admin fully understand the nature of the network. In the network layer, the admins can monitor several aspects of data inflow, such as its source and destination, the general monitoring of bandwidth, and network analysis. Through the network, layer Netflow can monitor data packets analyze for the admins to manage the network easily
Netflow has proved to be very helpful in contributing to network security firewalls and intrusion detection in several ways. Firstly, by identifying the source and