Cisco Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance (NGA) 3140 Guia De Informação
Q&A
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Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance 3240
General Overview
Q. What is the Cisco
®
NetFlow Generation Appliance (NGA) 3240?
A. The Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance 3240 is a scalable, cost-effective solution that helps enable flow
visibility in today’s high-performance data centers. Built on best-in-class Cisco Unified Computing System
™
(Cisco UCS
™
) C220 M3 hardware, the NGA 3240 generates, unifies, and exports flow data, empowering
network operations, engineering, and security teams to boost network operations excellence, enhance
services delivery, implement accurate billing, and harden network security.
Cisco NGA consumes raw network data from platforms such as Cisco Nexus
®
7000, Cisco Nexus 5000, Cisco
Nexus 3000, and Catalyst
®
6500 Series Switches to create and export NetFlow Data Export (NDE) records
(Version 5 [v5], Version 9 [v9], IPFIX) for traffic analysis and other management needs. Flow visibility is
dramatically amplified when the NGA is connected to multiple network devices to analyze flows hop by hop,
essential for security, capacity planning, and troubleshooting. To simplify operational manageability, the
appliances can be deployed at key observation points such as the server access layer, fabric path domains,
and Internet exchange points.
Designed for high performance and maximum deployment flexibility, the appliance gathers network data using
Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) and network tap, implements a large active flow cache (80 million), and can
be configured to export NetFlow data to multiple collectors. The NDE flows are exported in weighted round-
robin fashion for load balancing and the exports can be customized to meet specific management application
needs using 10 filters per destination.
Q. What are the key features and benefits of the Cisco NGA solution?
A. The Cisco NetFlow Generation Appliance 3240 redefines network visibility and sets a new standard for high-
performance, cost-effective NetFlow generation. The key features and benefits are outlined in Table 1.
Table 1.
Cisco NGA Features and Benefits
Feature
Benefit
Purpose-built appliance
●
Meets the rigorous performance demands of high-speed data centers
●
Achieves 100 percent accuracy with full visibility into traffic flows
NetFlow v5, v9, and IPFIX export
formats
formats
●
Preserve investments in your existing NetFlow collection infrastructure
SPAN and network tap support
Advanced filters for custom exports
Load balancing and flow replication
across multiple collectors (up to
six)
across multiple collectors (up to
six)
●
Integrate seamlessly with flexible setup and configuration options, and without affecting the existing
infrastructure
●
Quickly gather flow visibility into specific traffic of interest with ease of SPAN configuration
●
Connect to multiple devices to unify flow visibility and allow hop-by-hop analysis
●
Streamline flow collection with a single source of flow visibility for multiple management applications
●
Customize the exports to address specific management needs
●
Use an effective deployment design to maximize collection scalability
Layer 2/Layer 3 NetFlow support
●
Creates a comprehensive view of traffic flows in the data center
Up to 80 million active flow cache
entries
entries
●
Mitigate the risk of compromising accuracy as a result of the cache becoming full
●
Scale to a variety of traffic profiles with a mix of short-lived and long-lived flows
Application awareness
●
Recognizes applications on the basis of port, port ranges, and built-in heuristics