Network Packet Sensor is an agent installation that operates as both NetFlow Generator and DPI engine. It can be used to passively capture, read, and translate raw network packets from servers. It can also perform packet-level inspection and monitor the network response time and application response time to differentiate between network and application issues.
Note: Network Packet Sensor works only if NetFlow Analyzer runs in HTTPS mode.
Since Network Packet Sensor Agent package operates as both NetFlow Generator and DPI engine, you can enable or disable the functional modes or choose both as per your monitoring needs. During installation you can only choose either NetFlow Generator or DPI Engine. However, you can configure the functional modes later under Settings > ITOM Agent > Network Packet Sensor > Actions.
During the Network Packet Sensor Agent Package installation, an option to select the server operation as either NetFlow Generator or DPI Engine will be displayed. You can choose any one as per your monitoring needs.
You can enable or disable the agent type selection, simply by navigating in the NetFlow Analyzer's UI to Settings > ITOM Agent > Network Packet Sensor > Actions. Under Actions, you can configure the functional modes as either DPI engine or NetFlow Generator, or both.
Network Packet Sensor reads, captures and translates raw network packets from the selected Ethernet Card and also conducts Deep Packet Inspection.
You can select any Ethernet Card to read, capture, and analze the raw network packets for Deep Packet Inspection or translate them to NetFlow packets.
NetFlow Generator passively captures raw network packets from devices that don't support flow export and translates them into NetFlow packets recognized by NetFlow Analyzer. With NetFlow Generator drill down further to get data on average flow rate, flow count, last flow received and details of the listener port.
Note: Listener Ports can be added or modified. You can add up to 5 listener ports. To configure listener ports navigate to Settings > General Settings > Server Settings.
DPI Engine monitors the network response time and application response time, and conducts an analysis to find out whether the network or the application is at fault. The reports generated by DPI enable the network administrator to find the root cause of the poor network performance and resolve them before the end-users are affected.
Generate DPI reports by navigating to NetFlow Analyzer UI > Reports > DPI > Forensics.
Note: You can retain data for the following time period: 1 hour, 2 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, 3 days, and 1 week.
With DPI drill down further to find the Application Response Time, Network Response Time and get reports on network and application traffics, top conversations, source, destination and URL hits.
If you need help to monitor server traffic and conduct packet-level inspection, download and install Network Packet Sensor now.