Flow Information Storage Assessment Using IPFIXcol

Network monitoring has became a significant part of network management. Each environment and type of network have their specific, different needs. To allow network traffic monitoring in various environments, a necessity of flexible approach thus grows. The current generation of flow collectors provides only a limited flexibility, mainly due to limits of their data storage formats. Moreover, it is quite a challenging task to compare particular storage formats and their suitability for the specific environment and usage. In this paper we present IPFIXcol – a flow collector framework designed for easy data storage formats changing. This way, we plan to evaluate performance and suitability of various data storage formats for specific tasks. Results can be used to build the most appropriate data storage for the specific production environments.