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It’s always a fun time when I get together via video with Josh from SolarWinds. We hooked up this month to talk about NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, which will help you easily monitor your network traffic.

Real-time NetFlow Analyzer unlocks the power of NetFlow on your network. This new free tool determines the types of traffic on your network, where it’s coming from, and where it’s going. Real-time NetFlow Analyzer takes the guesswork out of diagnosing traffic spikes and stores up to one hour of NetFlow data – giving you X-ray vision into what’s on your network!

Put an end to complaints about the network being slow! With Real-time NetFlow Analyzer, you’ll get the visibility into NetFlow data that you’ve been waiting for. This free tool will enable you to

1. Investigate, troubleshoot, and quickly remediate network slowdowns.
2. Easily identify which users, devices, and applications are consuming the most bandwidth.
3. Isolate inbound and outbound traffic by conversation, application, domain, endpoint, and protocol.
4. Personalize NetFlow data displays to view traffic by specified time periods (up to 60 minutes) and by traffic type.
5. Customize refresh rates and display units for NetFlow traffic.

This is an excellent way to figure out where everything is going (and coming from!), without much “Geekitude” involved. In many situations, you may not have access to a connection to show you this information. Routers have a ‘probe’ of sorts built into them. NetFlow will allow you to access that ‘probe’, and keep track of what’s going on at all times.

The more troubleshooting issues you have at your disposal, the easier it is to manage your network. Even for a home network, using a tool like NetFlow makes your job as a network admin much easier. You may have traffic generating from your network that no one knows about. You could have picked up some type of Malware” title=”http://www.lockergnome.com/Kat/2007/09/28/how-to-windows-protection-software/\”>Malware” target=”_blank”>www.lockergnome.com/Kat/2007/09/28/how-to-windows-protection-software/”>Malware, or someone could have hacked in through your firewall and be accessing your files.

When it comes to network traffic for a newer System Administrator, what should they look out for? According to Josh, it’s important to keep in mind that you need to be able to use tools, such as SolarWinds’ Engineer’s Toolset. Use this to monitor the traffic going in and out. As long as you’re not over-subscribing your use, then it’s not so important how you’re using it. It’s a matter of understanding when you start to reach a threshold and you need to start budgeting your bandwidth. Once you reach that threshold, the first key is to be sure you have hardware that is manageable, and will allow you to grow as your needs grow.

NetFlow Analyzer is another excellent tool to keep in your arsenal, courtesy of our friends at SolarWinds. Thanks to Josh, as always, for taking time to talk with us.

• Win-Spy Monitoring Software.

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