Nagios® is the great-grand-daddy of monitoring tools, with only ping being more ubiquitous in some circles. It’s our list of the best free network monitoring tools available today. What is the best free network monitoring tool? The NetFlow data is then analyzed to create a picture of network traffic flow and volume - hence the name: NetFlow. NetFlow is a network protocol system created by Cisco that collects active IP network traffic as it flows in or out of an interface.

Flow analyzer: an application that examines and analyses the flow data collected by the flow collector.

Flow collector: a device that collects the exported flow data.

Flow exporter: a network device (a router or firewall) in charge of obtaining flow data and exports it to a flow collector.

Windows compatible, supportive of multiple alternative flow technologies, and extremely user-friendly, this tool has a real edge. In a product comparison, SolarWinds NTA ranks as the best NetFlow analyzer. With insights into bandwidth, you’re better able to optimize performance. It is presented in Cisco switches and routers that enables the network devices to export IP Flow data to a NetFlow collector/ NetFlow analyzer to be collected, processed and further dissected. NetFlow started as a proprietary technology developed by Cisco. Yes, the ElastiFlow Community Edition is completely free of charge and contains the entire Unified Flow Collection Engine. Analyzing NetFlow facilitates more accurate capacity planning and ensures that resources are used appropriately in support of organizational goals. What is NetFlow Analyzer?Ī NetFlow analyzer is a tool deployed to perform monitoring, troubleshooting and in-depth inspection, interpretation, and synthesis of traffic flow data. Then you can sort flows according to criteria like IP address, protocol, and throughput. The web-based interface consolidates packet data into flows. To get the data, it relies on an open-source NetFlow collector called nProbe. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer offers a free trial. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer pricing starts at $595.00 as a one-time payment. Although this tool is not free forever, you can use it for free for 30 days. The NetFlow Traffic Analyzer can communicate with network devices using the NetFlow, sFlow, J-Flow, NetStream, and IPFIX protocols.

Open source netflow monitoring tools