You know your network better than anyone else. Yet when your users complain that web pages are taking too long to load, or a critical internal application is timing out, you’re often at a loss to explain why. After all, users are only focused on whether their business applications are working right, while you have to think about much more, including managing the infrastructure that delivers those applications. So while you work hard to keep your network and servers healthy and running at optimal capacity – that’s not enough for your business users or your management. It’s almost as if you are conversing in different languages. And while you see the spikes in network traffic, you can’t pinpoint why and how they are affecting your applications.
Blindsided (def). Not knowing who or what is on your network
With flow enabled network devices you can quickly see which users, applications, protocols and traffic sources are generating traffic and consuming bandwidth. Maybe some users are doing unexpected things – like streaming large files or doing backups during normal business hours. Or maybe it’s something dangerous – like a virus spreading on your network. But you can only see this on a flow-enabled network. What happens if you don’t have the luxury of turning on flow monitoring across the network – simply because your devices don’t support it or the cost of upgrading to new infrastructure is not in your budget. You’re destined to manage your network with only partial visibility.
Flow Publisher brings Traffic Analysis to Every Corner of your Network
Well, help is on the way. With WhatsUp Gold Flow Publisher, you can get unique insight and visibility into your network traffic for every device – whether they natively support flow monitoring or not. In short, Flow Publisher makes flow monitoring possible for every network segment and for literally every device. By capturing raw traffic from the network and converting it into standard NetFlow records, Flow Publisher puts you in complete control and conversing in a language your users understand.
With Flow Publisher you can:
Key features of WhatsUp Gold Flow Publisher include:
Uses Flow Monitor plug-in for advanced reporting and alerting
WhatsUp Gold Flow Publisher acts as a network traffic flow information source for Flow Monitor and forwards processed NetFlow records to it. Flow Monitor acts as a standard collector, as it does for other flow-enabled devices, and provides a comprehensive picture of application flows across the entire network in one screen. All of Flow Monitor’s powerful reporting, configurable thresholds, analysis and alerting capabilities are also available to Flow Publisher records – ensuring centralized management of application, host and user traffic.
Works with any existing network devices and your Windows servers
Since Flow Publisher captures and processes raw network traffic from any mirrored switch port, or network TAP (Test Access Point) or even a Windows host server – there is no requirement for changes or upgrades to existing device capabilities. While Flow Monitor can be used to directly receive flow records from NetFlow, sFlow or J-Flow enabled devices, Flow Publisher seamlessly extends coverage to any non-flow enabled device. With Flow Publisher in place, the entire network can be managed with the same level of visibility.
Develops standard format flow records that you can easily understand
Flow Publisher outputs NetFlow v1, v5 and v9 compliant records enabling operations staff to use existing knowledge, skills and best practices that your business may already have in place. With advanced analysis, real time alerting and historical trending available through Flow Monitor – network managers can identify top conversation pairs, top senders and receivers, failed connections per host and analyze breakdown of traffic from every monitored network interface on any device.
Delivers accurate visibility with full flow capture
Popular flow protocols like sFlow or J-Flow employ sampling techniques that reduce the granularity of visibility and insight that flow data can provide. For example, flow sampling may completely miss occasional network congestion instances caused by intermittent and unpredictable user actions or malicious virus activity. With Flow Publisher, the full extent of raw traffic is captured and processed into NetFlow compliant records – ensuring accurate and in-depth visibility into user, protocol, source and destination, and application activity on the network.
Supports simple, manageable and cost-effective deployment
Flow Publisher is a small footprint application that can be installed on most Windows systems, enabling cost-effective deployment. It can capture flows from remote network ports and from four different traffic sources simultaneously. For servers, Flow Publisher is installed directly on the target system. Further, Flow Publisher supports configurable ACL’s (access control list) for administration and management.