NetFlow is turning out to be the primary IP Accounting technology in the world of networking. These days, network device vendors talk about NetFlow or sFlow support on their new device in the same vein as they mention the availability of a new 10G card or some enhanced routing feature. NetFlow or sFlow or any format of it has turned from being an “also have” technology to a “must have”.

Keeping in line with this is virtualization giants VMWare. VMWare had added an experimental NetFlow support on ESX Server 3.5 sometime back. The feature then disappeared in the next couple of releases but is now back. Perfected and available on Distributed Switch with the Enterprise Plus license of vSphere 5. Read about it from the post on VMWare Networking Blog:
http://blogs.vmware.com/networking/2011/08/vsphere-5.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/networking/2011/08/vsphere-5-new-networking-features-netflow.html

Great work from Team VMWare.

The next obvious question is, can we, ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer, monitor these flows? Yes ! But, I am not going to show how to do this. Because an expert has already talked about it.
Eric Sloof, of NTPRO.NL, a VMware Certified Instructor, an active member of the VMware community and whom VMware has rewarded with the vExpert title, shows how to enable NetFlow on vSphere 5 in his video and the tool he uses is ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. The video clearly shows how NetFlow is enabled on the vSphere and NetFlow Analyzer with the results. See it, right here, right now:

http://youtu.be/VncrynwwldY

Another great post where you can find information about NetFlow on vSphere 5 is Hany Michael’s Hypervizor.com, a really great site for the vEnthusiasts. The posts talks about enabling NetFlow as well as mentions some use cases for the NetFlow export. He also mentions ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer for traffic analytics with vSphere NetFlow. Dont miss that screen capture under “DoS Attacks” where ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer’s ASAM module is shown detecting network anomalies.
http://www.hypervizor.com/2011/07/leveraging-the-vsphere-5-0-netflow-support-to-monitor-and-report-traffic-data-in-a-service-provider-vcloud-environment/

With 2 great VMWare experts having used ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer with vSphere NetFlow, do you need to look further? Start monitoring your vEnvironment and vCloud and get reports you thought will never be available.