What is Flow Monitor?

WhatsUp Gold Flow Monitor is a network traffic monitor that lets you gather, analyze and report on network traffic patterns and bandwidth utilization in real-time. It uses NetFlow, sFlow, and J-Flow (sampled NetFlow) network protocols to report information about the traffic on a router, switch, or other traffic-conducting network device. It highlights not only overall utilization for the LAN or WAN, specific device or interface, but also indicates users, applications and protocols that are consuming abnormal amounts of bandwidth. Flow Monitor works by collecting and summarizing the data that is carried over a device, and then transmitting that summary to another device, called a collector, for storage and analysis. Flow Monitor supports the NetFlow versions 1, 5, and 9 and sFlow version 5.

Flow Monitor is a software-based NetFlow collector designed for use on servers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. After configuring routers, switches, and other devices to transmit Flow summary data to Flow Monitor, you can view reports that allow you to:

• View network usage trends to determine when to upgrade hardware to increase network capacity.
• Recognize and correct network configuration issues that may needlessly consume network resources or expose your network to security vulnerabilities.
• Identify traffic which may indicate undesired network usage, such as unauthorized use of peer-to-peer file sharing applications or a denial-of-service attack against your organization.
• Troubleshoot and correct causes of spikes in network traffic before they become problems.