How does Flow Monitor work?

When a router or other device sends flow data to Flow Monitor, it follows the process shown below.

1. The router gathers information about the traffic that is passing through it and summarizes that data into a NetFlow, sFlow, or J-Flow (sampled NetFlow) export.
2. The router sends the flow export to the Flow Monitor collector.

   Note: sFlow data is sent every x number of packets (configurable on the sFlow device), whereas all NetFlow data is collected and monitored. This means that sFlow data provides a sampling of network traffic data, whereas NetFlow data provides all network traffic data.

3. The Flow Monitor collector stores the NetFlow, sFlow, or J-Flow (sampled NetFlow) export in the database.
4. When the report data is viewed on the web interface, Flow Monitor retrieves the data from the database and manipulates it to produce the report.

Tip: WhatsUp Flow Monitor can collect and generate reports for Flow data from multiple devices.