With more and more users preferring high speed networks, the presence and usage of high speed networks is increasing steadily. After all, who would like to wait for a web page to load for fifty full seconds? When it comes to companies and corporate networks, speed is gaining importance like never before

With more and more users preferring high speed networks, the presence and usage of high speed networks is increasing steadily.
After all, who would like to wait for a web page to load for fifty
full seconds? When it comes to companies and corporate networks,
speed is gaining importance like never before. The reasons for this
are not too far to seek. Firstly, the reliance on networks for
carrying out day-to-day business activities is ever increasing. And
secondly, managing bandwidth efficiently and effectively is becoming
highly challenging which the Network engineer would be well aware of.
Monitoring networks operating at such a high speed is indeed not
something one could take chances with. When a lot of people ranging
from the top management to the middle management, from employees to
customers to support staff members, located a various places spread
across the globe, relying completely on these networks, a simple slow
down would naturally mean not just a lost business day but affect
business continuity. To avoid all of this, there are several tools
that one could use for smooth conduct of business and manage
bandwidth effectively.

sFlow is a technology that is specially
usable in high speed networks. An introduction to sFlow was given in
the blog post titled An
Introduction to sFlow technology and a brief on sFlow vs NetFlow
technology . This blog primarily focuses on the importance of
sFlow and the benefits it could offer to the Network Administrator.

sFlow does packet based sampling and it
is embedded within the network. A hardware probe based monitoring
system would normally give on a partial view of the network, but when
the monitoring solution is embedded within the switch or the router,
that really helps in giving a real time view of the network. The
biggest strength of sFlow is its ability to provide uninterrupted
visibility into application level traffic monitoring that too at wire
speed across all its interfaces. Netflow analyzer supports this flow
format and gives unprecedented visibility into the network. sFlow
helps in collecting vital data which is very helpful in managing the
network effectively and measuring the network performace as well.
This leads to effective bandwidth management and help the user with
the required competitive edge. This mode of monitoring makes life
really easy for a network administrator because when visibility
improves, there will be a very minimum need for troubleshooting.

As far as the benefits sFlow offers,
there are a plenty of them. We would primarily focus on four of the
benefits which are as follows:

1. Controlling congestion

Real time visibility into the traffic
patterns enables instant identification of congested links and the
sources of traffic at those links. The associated application level
conversations can also be identified through Netflow Analyzer from
the sFlow information. This information is very helpful in deciding
which traffic needs to be controlled and prioritizing certain
business critical applications for provision of bandwidth,

2. Troubleshooting Network problems

When the network is used, it
automatically creates traffic and the patterns in raw form are very
difficult to analyze. sFlow gives visibility to these abnormal
traffic patterns with sufficient detail facilitating easy diagnosis
and correction.

3. Security Analysis

As the network is vulnerable to many
kinds of security attacks, effective security monitoring needs
complete network surveillance which is provided by sFlow. By giving visibility into real-time and historical network-wide usage anomalies could be detected thereby safeguarding the network from possible attacks.

4. Accounting and billing usage

sFlow provides detailed information
about network usage and this helps in providing customers a detailed
and itemized breakdown of the total traffic thereby improving their
confidence levels on the service provider as the billing mechanism
becomes very fair and transparent. This feature provides maximum
advantage to the service provider.

Apart from these, there are several
other benefits which we would deal with in future. Netflow Analyzer
offers support for sFlow format and as a Network Engineer, one could
get the full benefit of sFlow technology to ensure a hassle free
network. You can download a 30 day trail of Netflow Analyzer(all features included) here.

Warm regards

Sai Sundhar

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The original article/video can be found at Get the benefit of sFlow through Netflow Analyzer