sFlow doesn’t deal with the network devices.

There are four major differences between NetFlow and sFlow: SFlow takes the bytes from these samplings, transforms them into sFlow datagrams, and sends them off to the sFlow collector. The difference between sFlow and NetFlow is that NetFlow uses templates, while sFlow is a NetFlow alternative using protocol extensions rather than templates. While technologies like NetFlow and J-Flow sample a part of each IP flow, sFlow samples 1 in N of each packet passing through the interface, irrespective of the flow. An IP flow is defined as a series of IP packets moving from a source to a destination, through a particular port. The current version of sFlow is v5. In fact, sFlow is a packet-sampling technology, rather than a “flow-sampling” technology. SFlow, short for “sampled flow”, is an industry standard for packet export at Layer 2 of the OSI model. After their bytes and packets are tallied up, these compartmentalized flows are exported to a NetFlow collector. Except for layer 3 protocols and router/switch interface, packets meeting all seven of the criteria above are grouped together. NetFlow gathers all the data pulled from IP traffic leaving the device, inspects all the packets, and consolidates them into flows based on particular areas. You can download Flexible NetFlow and IPFIX extensions. We have already posted a blog about NetFlow on this site, which we recommend you read before continuing to read this post: In this blog, we are going to review a number of NetFlow tools.

NetFlow is a network protocol that collects information about your network’s IP traffic and monitors network traffic activity.

Best netflow analyzer