Using NetFlow

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NetFlow provides a powerful, flexible and effective way to collect data needed for detailed IP network performance analysis. It can be used for a number of tasks like the following:

Monitoring network usage including current and historical data; finding top bandwidth consumers: users, hosts, applications, protocols, etc.
Measuring actual traffic; obtaining detailed information about bandwidth utilization by particular hosts, network interfaces, applications, protocols, etc.
Tracking network problems and reveal their roots; providing security, and detect threats like worms, virus attacks and other rogue and unsolicited activity.
Tuning network for better performance in most common use cases specific for a particular organization.
Ensuring required quality of network communication for critical applications.
Network trending and capacity planning.

NetFlow today is the most widely-used technology to collect statistics in large, high-traffic networks. NetFlow and its kindred technologies are supported by a number of network infrastructure vendors including Cisco, HP, Juniper, and many others.