PRTG Manual: Monitoring Bandwidth via Flows

Using Flow protocols you can monitor the bandwidth usage of all packets going through a device. In PRTG, you can view Toplists for all xFlow sensors.

How xFlow Monitoring works

You can measure bandwidth usage by IP address or by application in a network, using one of the xFlow protocols. They are the best choice especially for networks with high traffic (connections with 100s of megabit or gigabits). For xFlow monitoring the router gathers bandwidth usage data (flows), aggregates them and sends information about these flows to PRTG using UDP packets. When sampling is used (mandatory for sFlow) only information about every n-th packet is sent to PRTG which reduces CPU load a lot. Because the switch already performs a pre-aggregation of traffic data, the flow of data to PRTG is much smaller than the monitored traffic. This makes xFlow the ideal option for high traffic networks that need to differentiate the bandwidth usage by network protocol and/or IP addresses.

NetFlow Monitoring

The NetFlow protocol is mainly used by Cisco devices. Once configured, the router sends for each data flow a NetFlow packet to the monitoring system running on a PRTG probe. There the data can be filtered and evaluated. There are different NetFlow sensors available: The basic ones offer predefined channel definitions, the custom variants enable you to define your own channels.

The advantage of using NetFlow:

  • Generates little CPU load on the router itself (according to Cisco 10,000 active flows create about 7% additional CPU load; 45,000 active flows account for about 20% additional CPU load).
  • Generates less CPU load on the PRTG core system, compared to packet sniffer sensors.

Note: You must enable NetFlow export on the device you want to monitor. The device must send a flow data stream to the IP address of the PRTG probe system on which the NetFlow sensor is set up. Juniper jFlow monitoring is reported to work as well, using NetFlow v5 sensors.

sFlow Monitoring

sFlow works similar to NetFlow monitoring. The router sends data flow packets to the monitoring system running on a PRTG probe. The most obvious difference between the two flow protocols: With sFlow, not all of the traffic is analysed, but only every n-th packet. It is like having a river of traffic and you take a cup of water out of it ever so often and analyze it.

The advantage is clear: There is less data to analyze, there is less CPU load needed and less monitoring traffic is generated. Yet you can get a good insight into your network's bandwidth usage. Note: Currently, PRTG supports sFlow version 5.

Set Up Flow Sensors

Find details on how to set up the different flow sensors in the following sections:

 

Limitations

On a powerful 2008 PC (Dual Core, 2.5 Ghz), you can process about 100,000 flows per second for one xFlow stream. Using sampling the number of actual flows can be much higher. When using complex filters, the value can be much lower. For example, with a router sending about 2,000 flows/second (which corresponds to mixed traffic at gigabit/sec level without sampling) you can expect to configure up to 50 NetFlow sensors operating properly. PRTG internally monitors its own NetFlow processing, and you will see a decreased values in the Core/Probe Health sensor's Health channel as soon as NetFlow packets are not processed due to an overload (you find this sensor on the Local Probe device).

If you experience an overload please consider using sampling or setting up multiple probes and distribute the NetFlow streams to them. We do not recommend adding more than 400 NetFlow sensors per PRTG probe.

More

Knowledge Base: Can I add custom channels to standard Packet Sniffer and NetFlow sensors?

 

Knowledge Base: What filter rules can be used for custom Packet Sniffing or xFlow (NetFlow/sFlow) sensors?

 

Knowledge Base: How do the channel definitions for custom Packet Sniffing or xFlow (NetFlow/sFlow) sensors work?

 

Knowledge Base: Does my Cisco device (Router/Switch) support NetFlow Export?

 

Knowledge Base: Do you have any configuration tips for Cisco routers and PRTG?

 

Knowledge Base: Is it possible to monitor Cisco ASA Firewalls using Netflow 9 and PRTG?

 

Knowledge Base: How to monitor Cisco ASA Firewalls using NetFlow 9 and PRTG?

 

Tools: NetFlow Generator and NetFlow Tester

 

Sensor Technologies—Topics

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Keywords: Flow,Flow Technology

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