Owners Manual

How does Traffic Flow work? | Traffic Flow Analyzer
OMNM 6.5.2 User Guide 529
IPFIX—Another traffic flow monitoring technology that is similar to NetFlow but is even more
open-ended and allows for more flexibility in how it can be implemented by hardware
vendors. Sampling is also optional for this technology.
jFlow —Juniper's implementation of NetFlow.
sFlow —Another traffic flow monitoring technology that has a clearly defined standard and thus
there is very little leeway for how hardware vendors can implement it. Sampling of traffic flow
data is required in this technology, so a full reporting of the data is not possible and instead
you would need to rely on estimated actual values.
Collector —Application listening on a UDP port for NetFlow/IPFIX/sFlow datagram.
Exporter —Network element that sends the NetFlow/IPFIX/sFlow datagram.
Endpoint —A network node that sends and/or receives flows. If the flow is merely passing through
the node but was not sent nor received by the node, then this node would not be is not
considered an endpoint (not for this particular flow anyways) but it might be considered an
exporter (if it is registered as such).
Conversations — IP Communications between two network endpoints. For example, if endpoint A
sends data to endpoint Z and then the data flow is reversed so that Z sends data to A, these
flows are both part of the same conversation.
Flow —A flow is a unidirectional stream of packets between two network endpoints.
NOTE:
Counter sFlow packets do not appear as Traffic Flows, but essentially duplicate Performance metrics for
interfaces. Such Flows monitor how data traverses between two endpoints. You can monitor interfaces
with Performance monitors. See Performance Monitoring.