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.

Why should I install NTA?

As companies and their networks grow, bandwidth needs grow exponentially. All modern connected industries invest significant amounts of time and money to ensure that enough bandwidth is available for business-critical activities and applications. When bandwidth needs exceed currently available capacity or when demand seems to expand beyond the abilities of your network, understanding bandwidth use is no longer a novel interest. It becomes critical to deciding whether it is necessary to invest in more bandwidth or if stricter usage guidelines are sufficient to regain lost bandwidth.

With the advent of streaming media, voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, online gaming, and other bandwidth-intensive applications, you, as a network engineer, must answer more than the simple question of whether the network is up or down. You must answer why the network is not performing up to expectations.

If you need to know how and by whom your bandwidth is being used, NTA provides a simple answer. You can quickly trace and monitor the bandwidth usage of a particular application or type of traffic. For example, if you see excessive bandwidth use on a particular interface, you can use NTA to see that the company meeting, consisting of streaming video, is consuming 80% of the available bandwidth through a particular switch. Unlike many other NetFlow analysis products, the network and flow data presented in NTA are not purely extrapolated data, but they are based on real information collected about the network by Network Performance Monitor, on which NTA depends.

Out of the box, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer offers broad monitoring and charting capabilities, coupled with detail-driven statistics, including the following:

  • Distribution of bandwidth across traffic types
  • Usage patterns over time
  • External traffic identification and tracking
  • Tight integration with detailed interface performance statistics

These monitoring capabilities, along with the customizable SolarWinds Platform Web Console and reporting engines, make NTA the easiest choice you will make involving your flow monitoring needs.