Cisco Netflow - Number of Channels and Number of Event Collectors

[danny_fang_77]

Hi,

I have Cisco 3600 series routers exported with Cisco Netflow v5. As I'm rather new to Netflow, may I know what is associations/correlations between the number of channels and the number of event collectors?

Also, how is the Event Collector associated with the number of aggregations per channel?

My understanding is that the event collectors serve as a collection of flow data after it has been received from the channels, and filtered and its flows aggregated according to some aggregation scheme. Hence the questions:

1) Is 1 event collector only associated to 1 channel?

2) Could the event collectors be associated to multiple channels? If so, what is the mechanism/method used for associating multiple channels to 1 event collector so as not to cause confusions between aggregations schemes of different channels?

Could anyone help me out?

Thanks in advance,

Danny.

[smahbub]

Cisco NetFlow collector provides fast, scalable, and economical data collection from multiple NetFlow Export-enabled devices. The Cisco collector consumes flow datagrams from multiple NetFlow Export-enabled devices and performs data volume reduction through selective filtering and aggregation, performs bi-directional flow analysis and flow de-duplication. The Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM) can collect NetFlow data within Cisco devices and provides a comprehensive reporting and traffic analysis solution. Check out the following link for white papers on Cisco IOS Netflow :

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6601/prod_white_papers_list.html