Cisco Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance (NGA) 3240 White Paper
© 2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Figure 2. Cisco NGA Solution Architecture
Main Benefits
Improved Network ROI
Cisco NGA helps improve the effective use and monetization of both switching and network resources. It offers the
option to offload the NetFlow generation function from the network device and dedicate the CPU cycles to
increase forwarding performance. In addition, accurate characterization of network use allows true sizing of the
network resources to support business needs. The information also becomes the basis of any billing or
chargeback mechanism implemented by IT for effective monetization.
Enhanced Operation Efficiency
Cisco NGA allows you to combine flow visibility across different observation points in the network, drastically
reducing the time it takes to solve a performance problem. This capability is especially powerful in Layer 2
networks for identifying network bottlenecks and behavior that affects performance. For example, Cisco NGA can
be used for combined visibility across multiple access switches and server access VLANs and for comparing flows
before and after implementing network services such as firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT). The
visibility not only helps in troubleshooting but also in validating network service policies: for instance, in isolating
incidents when a firewall may be dropping flows, affecting application performance.