Rarely do the words “free” and “netflow tool” appear in the same sentence but today they are…
Do you want to know what traffic is really going through your network, real-time, right now? If so, one of the best options is to enable NetFlow on your Cisco routers then analyze that NetFlow data with a NetFlow Analyzer. Download Solarwind’s Free Real-Time NetFlow Analyzer from the Petri IT Knowledgebase and find out what is really going on in the network!
David Davis (CCIE #9369, VCP, CISSP, MCSE) has been in the IT industry for 15+ years. He has authored over 300 articles, 6 video training courses, and co-authored one book. Learn about David's certifications, video courses, and where you can find his content on our
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello David,
I think getting the word out on NetFlow finally started taking off last year but, as you are probably aware, many companies are still not taking advantage of it. Lets not forget sFlow which is very popular on just about every other vendor that competes with Cisco (e.g. Foundry, Extreme, HP Procurves, etc.). Solarwinds support for sFlow is lacking.
Another great NetFlow & sFlow analyzer is Scrutinizer from Plixer:
http://www.plixer.com/products/free-netflow.php I think many will find that it far surpasses Orion when it comes to free software for flow analysis. With nearly 4 years in the flow analysis business and Orion barely a year, plixer has moved onto Flow Analytics (FA). FA looks for behaviors on the network (e.g. P2P, network scans, attacks, etc.) and sends alarms when they occur.
http://www.plixer.com/products/scrutinizer_alarm.php
If you have to go looking for problems, you not likely to be nearly as proactive.
Call them and ask to see the “NetFlow Challenge”. Scrutinizer is worth checking out.
Good stuff.
Thanks,
Tom
Hey guys..
Nice discussion going on here.. Talking about the number of years in this field and supporting netflow / Sflow, I couldn’t resist bringing up Manageengine NetFlow Analyzer. NetFlow Analyzer has been around for a long time.. Check it out http://www.netflowanalyzer.com
Highly affordable and feature rich….made with SMB’s(inexpensive) in heart and enterprises (scalable) in mind.. Has everything one can ask for.. bandwidth monitoring, network forensics, IP groups, detailed reports, scheduling…etc.. even supports Cisco NBAR and CBQOS for validating QoS policies.. 30-day trial without even filling out a form. ..
http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/netflow/download.html
🙂
Sam
Thanks for all your 3 different reviews. It helped me in narrowing
down all the choices. It’s pretty hard to make a good decision when you’re just starting to learn CCNA Exploration stuff.
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Cisco IOS NetFlow
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NetFlow Commercial Software Packages
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/iosswrel/ps6537/ps6555/ps6601/networking_solutions_products_genericcontent0900aecd805ff728.html
Freeware NetFlow Software
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/732/Tech/nmp/netflow/partners/freeware/index.shtml
Thank you for the informative review. In the past I have worked with multiple companies who were evaluating various collectors. The companies in question had a high network traffic and needed to be able to drill down and see who or what was consuming their bandwidth.
The two collectors that held up to this heavy Netflow load were the ManageEngine and Scrutinizer. The final choice for most of these clients was to go with Scrutinizer, because of it’s analytical engine, mapping and integration into other applications.
As far as “Free Tools” go, Scrutinizer has them beat. It collects 24hrs worth of data and retains most of it’s functionality. It’s a great choice if you are looking to troubleshoot a problem.