Troubleshoot Bandwidth Issues with NetFlow Traffic Analysis
Monitor and analyze network traffic by application, user, protocol, and endpoint with SolarWinds® NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA).
Analyze Flow Traffic in Near Real Time
Drill into flow data to see top talkers, network traffic patterns, and application bandwidth hogs across your network. As a NetFlow analyzer, NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is designed to collect and analyze flow data down to the interface level, providing near real-time visibility, so you can see which users, applications, protocols, source and destination IP addresses, and IP groups generate traffic. You can view patterns over time, drill from high-level usage into individual elements, and investigate abnormal traffic in granular detail. SolarWinds NTA supports flow technologies from multiple network device vendors, including NetFlow v5/v9, sFlow, IPFIX, j-flow, and NetStream.
- Use flow data to help identify top talkers and application bandwidth hogs.
- View traffic patterns over time to help understand what is normal.
- Drill from high-level network usage into individual elements to help find the cause.
- Use granular flow data to help investigate abnormal or unexpected traffic.
- Supports flow technologies including NetFlow versions 5 and 9, sFlow, IPFIX, j-flow, and NetStream
Track Bandwidth Usage by User, App, and Protocol
Know who and what is consuming network bandwidth so you can spot bottlenecks and the source of congestion or degraded service. Flow bandwidth monitoring is designed to show bandwidth utilization by user, application, and protocol, and to identify the top bandwidth consumers. Charts and tables make that usage easy to read and share in a single view, so your team can act on the cause instead of guessing. Sankey-style visualizations in the traffic paths view provide an alternative to classic charts for network traffic monitoring. Spotting the applications or users behind a slowdown can help you troubleshoot faster.
- Identify the top network bandwidth consumers on your network.
- Break down NetFlow bandwidth utilization by user, application, and protocol.
- Visualize usage in charts and tables.
- Spot the applications or users behind congestion.
- Narrow degraded service down to its likely source.
Correlate Traffic Data to Troubleshoot Network Issues
Connect traffic spikes with performance degradation by viewing flow data alongside other network performance metrics with Performance Analysis (PerfStack™) dashboards. Comparing events on a shared timeline can help you pinpoint problematic applications and top talkers and investigate anomalous activity. Because you can analyze both current and historical incidents, your team can troubleshoot network issues faster and explain what happened to stakeholders with confidence.
- Compare events on a shared timeline.
- Connect traffic spikes with performance degradation.
- Investigate anomalous activity with flow data.
- Identify problematic applications and top talkers.
- Analyze both current and historical incidents.
Generate Custom NetFlow and Bandwidth Reports
Turn flow data into predefined and customizable reports that your team can schedule and share. Reports can cover current and historical traffic, and can be customized around bandwidth and flow metrics, so NetFlow analysis stays useful for capacity planning and resource allocation beyond the moment of an incident. Recurring delivery to the teams or stakeholders who need the reports helps everyone work from the same traffic picture, whether they are in IT operations or leadership.
- Use predefined reports or customize your own.
- Report on current and historical traffic.
- Build reports around bandwidth and flow metrics.
- Schedule recurring reports.
- Distribute reports to relevant teams and stakeholders.
Learn More About NetFlow Analysis
Get answers to common questions about network traffic analysis and SolarWinds NTA.
Turn NetFlow Data Into Insights
NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
- Analyze traffic by application, protocol, IP group, and endpoint.
- Get alerts when application traffic spikes, drops, or disappears.
- Perform historical traffic trend analysis across minutes, days, or months.


