dedicated NetFlow (V5&V8) probe for OC-3, OC-12 and OC-48

Tue Nov 27 09:22:02 UTC 2001

Dear all,

we've developed a NetFlow probe which processes about 1 Mpps (depends on
the CPUs) unsampled traffic. We called it FlowBox.

Details:
- based on rackmount PC (1U/2U)
- FreeBSD
- PoS NICs with deep HW support for probing 
- AS  list (RIPE format) loadable; so you don't need complete AS
information on the router; we can also integrate a BGP reader if this is
too static.
- optional sending to multiple Collectors
- optional passive (optical splitter) or active (lineloop/3R
regeneration/media adaption) probing
- optional V5 traffic reduction by a factor of about 1:10 by ignoring one
(the always changing) TCP port; (still 100% NetFlow compliant)
- tested by Cisco 
- tested with CAIDA's tools

Problem:
First we built the box, now we try to build a business plan for; but we
failed up to now, 'cause there is no use for in europe (few number of high
speed lines, accounting infrastructure not yet developed etc)

Question:
Is there anybody who thinks, that the box has been a good idea?

Thanx in advance for any response (otherwise FlowBox will never touch the
market).

Yours

Eddy Beier
CEO bina GmbH
Am Bruckweg 84
D-90499 Nuremberg

ps: for the historically interested ones:
we spinned off from the University of Erlangen with a complete Accounting
system in a single box. with this box e.g. BMW account their european
distributors (>800) and Allianz (europen insurance market leader)
their agents (>8000)
But it also had all problems of a complete accounting system in a single
box (e.g. full file system, lack of analysis recources) and it's been
proprietary.
So we focused on the de facto accounting interface NetFlow and on probing. 