Configuring the PoS Module
Configuring and Monitoring Flow Statistics
Each PoS port can maintain and export traffic statistics for the flows that traverse the
associated SONET link. A flow is defined as a unidirectional sequence of packets
between a particular source device and destination device that share the same protocol
and transport-layer information. Flows are defined by the following fields: source IP
address, destination IP address, source port, destination port, protocol type, and SONET
interface. Per-flow statistics are useful for many management purposes, including:
• Accounting and billing
• Network capacity planning and trend analysis
• Network monitoring
• Workload characterization
• User profiling
• Data warehousing and mining
Flow Statistics Background Information
Each PoS module can maintain two million flow records. Per-flow statistics are exported
in the NetFlow Version 1 record format described in Table 3-12. NetFlow records are
unidirectional in nature, which implies that two flow records are maintained for a
typical TCP connection: one record for flow in the ingress direction; a second for the
flow in the egress direction. Also, records are maintained only for TCP and UDP flows.
Table 3-12: NetFlow Version 1 Record Format
Field Name
Octets
srcaddr
4
dstaddr
4
nexthop
4
input
2
output
2
3-60
Field Description
Source IP address
Destination IP address
IP address of next-hop router; set to zero for per-flow
statistics; set to xFFFF for filter-based aggregated statistics
Input interface index; set to index of PoS interface for
ingress flows received from the SONET link; set to zero for
egress flows that are being transmitted over the SONET link
Output interface index; set to index of PoS interface for
egress flows that are being transmitted over the SONET link;
set to zero for ingress flows received from the SONET link
Packet Over SONET Module Installation and User Guide