Documentation forNetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Analyzing network traffic and bandwidth is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Advanced edition. NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) is also available in a standalone module.

Adjust data aggregation settings

Aggregating NetFlow data in memory significantly reduces the I/O demands that NTA makes on your SolarWinds Platform database, which can increase the performance of all SolarWinds applications that share the database. If SolarWinds Platform Web Console widgets are allowed to work directly against the SolarWinds Platform database in making and presenting their latest calculations without aggregation, NPM would make big I/O demands on the SolarWinds Platform database. This would impact performance of both NTA and NPM.

By aggregating data before writing it to the SolarWinds Platform database, NTA software expedites the presentation of summary statistics for three of the most important kinds of information about traffic on your network: Top XX Applications, Top XX Endpoints, and Top XX Conversations.

Activate aggregation

By aggregating data before writing it to the SolarWinds Platform database, NTA expedites the presentation of summary statistics for three of the most important kinds of information about traffic on your network: Top XX Applications, Top XX Endpoints, and Top XX Conversations.

To turn on data aggregation settings:

  1. Go to NetFlow Settings:

    1. Click My Dashboards > NetFlow > NTA Summary.
    2. Click NetFlow Settings in the top right corner.
  2. Scroll down to Database Settings and configure the Data Aggregation options as follows:
    1. Check Enable Aggregation of Top Talker Data.
    2. Enter how many of the following SolarWinds Platform should aggregate NetFlow data for:
      • Top Applications
      • Top Endpoints
      • Top Conversations
    3. Enter the number of hours NTA should save aggregated NetFlow data in cache.
  3. Click Save.

Optimize aggregation

Optimize aggregation by displaying the items you entered above when you activated aggregation. For example, if you entered 10 Top Conversations for which to aggregate data, you should display up to 10 Top Conversations. Displaying more conversations would require loading more data than is cached and would slow performance.

To set the optimal number of data elements:

  1. Click Edit from a Top XX Applications, Endpoints, or Conversations pane.
  2. On the Edit Resource page, enter the Maximum Number of Items to Display. This number should match the number you entered for this widget when you activated data aggregation in the procedure above.
  3. Click Submit.