Service Provider Networks / (none) /

Narus nails NetFlow

By Jim Duffy
The Edge, 06/26/01

Back-office software developer Narus today unveiled a product that collects, aggregates and filters Cisco NetFlow packet accounting data from Cisco routers.

Narus' FlowVision appliance translates NetFlow statistics into data for billing, fraud detection and provisioning applications. Narus claims it is the first "off-the-shelf integrated system" to collect and process NetFlow data.

Narus recently won a contract with Digital Island based on its NetFlow collection capabilities (Digital Island and Xacct lock horns over billing software). FlowVision did not play a role in that win, Narus says.

Narus beat out rival Xacct on the DI contract. But Xacct today made public a multimillion-dollar contract it actually won several months ago with Cable & Wireless, the carrier acquiring DI for $340 million.

Even though an Xacct official says his company has "no indication" that DI will now have to adopt its software, he did say that C&W chose Xacct as its "network-wide" back-office standard to be used for multiple services globally, including Web hosting, which is DI's bread-and-butter.

NetFlow data is usually collected by complex and "homegrown" pieces of internally-developed software running on servers. The FlowVision appliance only requires a connection to the network before it starts collecting and processing NetFlow data sent by the routers, Narus says.

The FlowVision appliance offers processing choice from a set of 22 aggregations, including Call Record and Destination Autonomous System Record. The data collected is in a format that complies with visualization tools such as Cisco's FlowAnalyzer and other OSS/BSS applications, Narus says.

The FlowVision appliance sports an RJ-45 10/100 BaseT Ethernet network port and an optional 10/100 Base-T for configuration. Standard configuration ports include RS-232 serial and VGA monitor and IBM PS/2 attachments. The device can also be configured remotely via HTTP commands from a Web interface. FlowVision is now shipping. It costs $25,000.

Xacct's contract with C&W, meanwhile, has Xacct's "Network-to-Business" (N2B) software now installed in Japan, the US and the United Kingdom. N2B is currently being used to support usage-based billing for C&W's Managed Hosting Solutions in the US, Xacct says.

Other locations in Europe will be brought up later this year.

N2B software feeds usage data from Cisco routers into C&W's existing Kenan Arbor billing system. The software will also help C&W turn up new IP services based on the customer and service usage trend data it collects, Xacct claims.

Xacct is at xacct.com

Narus is at narus.com

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