Add flow-enabled devices and interfaces to the SolarWinds Platform database

NTA collects flow data from your network devices and analyzes network traffic based on collected data.

To collect flow data, you must specify the NTA server as a target to which each device exports data. For more information, see Set up network devices to export NetFlow data.

Only nodes whose interfaces were discovered by NPM can be added as Flow sources.

To analyze flow data, you must add each flow-enabled network interface to the SolarWinds Platform database, so that they can be monitored in NPM.

To initiate flow monitoring, flow-enabled devices in the SolarWinds Platform database must be designated as flow sources. For more information, see Add flow sources and CBQoS‑enabled devices.

Adding flow-enabled devices and interfaces to NPM and designating the same devices and interfaces as flow sources in NTA are separate actions. The designation of flow sources does not affect licensing requirements for either NPM or NTA.

1. Add the appropriate nodes to NPM.

• If you are adding a large number of nodes, use Network Sonar Discovery.

  Click Settings > Network Discovery.

  Confirm that you add all flow-enabled interfaces on added devices.

  For more information, see Discovering and adding network devices.

• If you are only adding a few nodes, it may be easier to use Web Node Management in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

  Click Settings > Manage Nodes > Add Node.

  For more information, see Adding Devices for Monitoring in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

2. Click My Dashboards > Home > Summary.
3. Under All Nodes, verify that the devices were added.
4. Click My Dashboards > NetFlow > Flow Sources.
5. To finish setting up NetFlow monitoring, enable NetFlow monitoring for the selected nodes. For more information, see Add Flow Sources and CBQoS‑enabled Devices.

If you have already configured device interfaces to send flow data, NTA can detect and analyze flow data after the device is added.

What happens after you add devices and interfaces to the SolarWinds Platform database?

• After installing NTA, the NPM polling engine establishes a baseline by collecting network status and statistics.
• Thirty seconds later, the NPM polling engine performs another collection. You may notice an increase in the CPU usage during this time.
• After these initial collections, NPM collects network information every ten minutes for nodes and every nine minutes for interfaces. Flow analysis data displays in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console in minutes.

Before leaving NTA to gather data, ensure you are collecting flow data for the correct interface ports and applications. For more information, see Applications and service ports in NTA.