Raw data is the flow data talked about in the paragraph prior, that comes in and gives you very clear information about what devices data went where. Every 5 minutes the backend will loop through each of the Sources you have created and consolidate bandwidth data into an RRD file and pull out any data for the Views that are associated with each Source. This program is used by the Network Analyzer Backend to reap flow data files every 5 minutes. Once the data is collected it is stored in binary files that are able to be read using a program called nfdump. This allows users to create sources for specific sections in their environment. Sources can also receive Netflow data from multiple different devices as long as they are all sending to the same Source port. Most other flow types have less data than Netflow and therefore can be stored and queried using a Source that has been set up to receive Netflow no matter what the flow type. Sources in Network Analyzer also support other flow types. This network data is normally referred to as 'flows', 'network flows', or sometimes even 'netflows' and comes into Network Analyzer as either Netflow or sFlow through a program called nfcapd (or sfcapd if using sFlow) via a port that is set up when you create a Source. It also does some statistical analysis of bandwidth data seen over time to let administrators know that there may be a problem on the network. Network Analyzer takes the information and aggregates it into easily readable reports, queries, graphs, and other diagrams such as the cord diagram using the data it collected. This allows network administrators to better understand the flow of data on their network. The application gives you the ability to see where network data is coming from and where it is going to.

Network Analyzer works with Netflow and sFlow network flow types along with others such as jFlow. Nagios Network Analyzer is a network flow data analyzer.

Network flow analyzer