A flow-based network monitoring system used for CSCW in design

Technology trends in today´s cooperative design environments are making it more and more important to monitor the network performance and ensure the network security. This paper describes the design and implementation of a distributed network traffic monitoring system based on embedded NetFlow hardware and software engines. The system architecture and design principles were introduced in the paper, some discussions were also presented about the NetFlow-based network monitoring technologies. The system had been successfully used to monitor highspeed campus networks at full wire speed without packet sampling in scenarios where commercial NetFlow collectors could not be used due to their limitations. Results show that this is an effective mechanism to identify, diagnose, and determine controls for network activities in CSCW environments and other network-based applications.