It's often said that knowledge is power. In our experience it's true: if you know just what's happening on your network, you have the power to optimise its performance. NetFlow Tracker gives network managers and others with responsibility for administration, security, support and convergence, the insight into network activity they need, to make informed decisions.

We have identified four key areas where improved insight into network activity can have a major impact on organisational effectiveness. The powerful and flexible reporting functions in NetFlow Tracker ensure that information can be tailored and made meaningful to customer, technical and management audiences alike.

Security

Monitoring network activity can play a major part in establishing and maintaining network security. Our monitoring software is based on these fundamentals: 

• Coverage - Most routers in the huge Cisco installed base can be used for network monitoring and with NetFlow Tracker no additional (costly) hardware probes are required. 
• Complete Visibility - NetFlow Tracker is practically alone in being able to report on every data conversation. The conversations that matter today start and remain small - virus, voice, peer-to-peer, hacking and worms. Only complete visibility makes tracking these conversations possible. 
• Conversation Awareness and IP Session Tracking - The ability to examine packets and their numerous fields in detail, so that unauthorised and hostile activity can be traced and analysed. o
• Conversations and Interfaces - More than just a record, knowing the source IP addresses of conversations and their inbound and outbound interfaces is critical to tracking and understanding unusual behaviour.

Operational Management

In order to keep carrier costs under control, Wide Area Networks must run to fine tolerances. As key links are optimised to match available bandwidth to demands, our monitoring software provides the information needed to make informed decisions. 

• Real-time information - we give network managers the 'what, where and when' information they need to maximise uptime and minimise negative impacts on performance.
• Audience Appreciation - Each of the different levels of expertise in operational management staff are catered for by the configurable and user-friendly interface found in NetFlow Tracker.
• Relevant information to each audience - It can be helpful for end users to see a simple, high-level, view of WAN link status, while managers and systems administrators need to zoom into greater detail. NetFlow Tracker is highly configurable to deliver the right level of information to each audience.

Voice & Data Convergence

As more applications depend on IP networks for their functionality, it is vital that network management has a clear picture of what is happening.

• Coverage - Providing the complete picture of what is happening on IP networks handling data, voice and performance-critical applications such as thin client.
• Conversation visibility - Seeing into all 'conversations' provides the insight needed to make informed decisions about capacity management, quality-of-service provisioning and forward capacity planning. 
• Capacity - Can the network cope with a planned or actual VoIP implementation? NetFlow Tracker can help provide the answer.
• Quality-of -Service visibility - Where network capacity becomes an issue, network engineers must decide on which quality-of-service parameters must be selected, to ensure that network-critical sensitive applications, such as Voice over IP, deliver the required level of service. NetFlow Tracker and other Crannog products help network engineers make that decision by monitoring TOS or DiffServ values before, during and after traffic engineering.

Support Services

Keeping networks running smoothly is very demanding on managers and administrators. The insight and information we provide can greatly ease that burden.

• Data visibility - Today, semi-technical and non-technical management also need some understanding of the huge volume of data generated by network monitoring, so they can make decisions in the best interest of the organisation. Reports generated by NetFlow Tracker can be configured to the needs of all such audiences. 
• Quality of Service and Continuity - User expectations, increasing competition, the global economy: these all combine to demand networks that never go down and that act positively to limit security breaches. Tracking network activity and performance is central to such provision. 
• Operational Support - Systems administrators, managers and users all need support from the network. Being able to observe and understand the impact of what they are trying to do requires in-depth information from NetFlow Tracker.

Product Summary

NetFlow Tracker harnesses flow information from Cisco IOS NetFlow, and flow standards from several other vendors, to give users detailed network traffic insight without the use of probes or appliances. Finally, many critical management questions about the network become easy to answer:

• Exactly what makes up my network traffic?
• Who are the users?
• What applications are they using?
•  Who and what are consuming the bandwidth?
• Are there worms and viruses in my network, where are they, where did they come from, and where are they going?
  • How is quality of service working? 
  • Are network usage policies being followed?

Regardless of network design (Frame Relay, Multi-protocol Label Switching, and so on.) NetFlow Tracker captures information on all network conversations passing through the interfaces of the supported routers and switches.

NetFlow Tracker generates unique databases that collect, store, and present valuable usage-based network data reports. In Version 2 of NetFlow Tracker, that reporting and storage capability has been greatly enhanced with the addition of the Advanced Services Module, which now allows data to be stored for up to 999 years.