NetFlow

NetFlow is a method for flow monitoring invented by Cisco. It's the industry standard for network traffic monitoring and the most widely used measurement solution today. Statistics on IP traffic flows provide information about who communicates with whom, when, how long, how often, using what protocol and service and also how much data was transferred.

More information can be found on following links.

• http://www.cisco.com/go/netflow
• http://www.caligare.com/netflow/netflow.php

IPFIX

Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX) was created by IETF working group from the need for a common, universal standard of export for IP flow information. The IPFIX standard defines how IP flow information is formatted and transferred from an exporter to a collector. Previously many data network operators were relying on the proprietary Cisco NetFlow standard for traffic flow information export. The IPFIX is a much more flexible successor of NetFlow format.