sFlow vs netFlow/IPFIX

Mon Feb 29 13:19:58 UTC 2016

Pavel Odintsov wrote:
> From hardware point of view almost all brand new switches support
> sflow free of charge (no additional licenses or modules). But be
> aware, Cisco do not support this protocol at all (that's pretty weird,
> really).

sflow is supported on the Nexus 3k range, but it's available as ingress
+ egress only, non-configurable (despite the fact that the option to
configure is available at the chipset level).  This means that you can't
define an account perimeter on the switch, which makes it mostly useless
from a production point of view.  Pretty much every other switch on the
market will allow you to specify either ingress or egress.

The only consistent explanation I can suggest for Cisco's vehement
antipathy towards sflow is "not invented here".  It's supported in
hardware by several of the other chipsets that Cisco uses, but left
non-enabled in software.

TBH it's a short sighted and disappointing approach to telemetry.

Nick