Netflow Collector -

While Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) can tell you how much traffic is passing through an interface (e.g., "Interface Gi0/1 is at 80% utilization"), it cannot tell you who is generating that traffic.

Everything changed in when engineers at Cisco introduced NetFlow . It wasn't just a new camera; it was a way to record the "phone records" of every digital conversation. What is NetFlow? - IBM netflow collector

: A network device (the exporter) monitors traffic and groups packets with identical attributes into a "flow". While Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) can tell

While "NetFlow" is the generic term, collectors must support different dialects: "Interface Gi0/1 is at 80% utilization")

A standard NetFlow monitoring setup consists of three distinct components: