Michael Patterson

About Michael Patterson

CEO, Plixer

As one of the founders of the company, Michael has been involved in the development of Scrutinizer NetFlow and sFlow Analyzer as well as Flow Analytics at Plixer. He enjoys writing and blogging about all things NetFlow, IPFIX and sFlow related.
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Posts by Michael Patterson:

NetFlow v5 Vs. NetFlow v9

You can’t decide; what is the difference between NetFlow v5 Vs. NetFlow v9? This post explains what you get with NetFlow v5 and the enhancements brought about with NetFlow v9 which is the basis for the proposed standard called IPFIX.  For several reasons explained below, NetFlow v9 is the export of choice. The biggest reason [...]

Reporting on URLs with NetFlow

Are you looking to gain details on URLs from NetFlow or IPFIX?  Here’s a possible solution for some of you.  If you have a Squid logs, Bluecoat logs or other type of device that can export any type of log (e.g. syslog) you can send them to the Flow Replicator which will convert logs to [...]

Security in IT: Cell Phones

With security experts like Dmitri Alperovitch claiming that all fortune 2000 companies have been hacked, it is understandable that many organizations are making security in IT a primary concern.  One of the biggest areas that could use some tightening up is in the area of cell phone security.  BYOD solutions which include mobile device management should [...]

End to End Visibility: Path Through the Network

Quality of Service (QoS) is a paramount concern for most network administrators.  To try an guarantee it, the prioritization of voice, video and other business applications are generally configured on every core switch and router and sometimes even on the periphery switches.  But, all it takes is one intermediary device between A & B to [...]

Network Quality of Service: Prioritization of VoIP, Salesforce.com and Youtube.com

FIFTY (50%) of consumer Internet traffic is video and do you know what it is doing to Quality of Service on your network? Do you think all of those new BYOD applications are being put to good use during company time?  Are you afraid to find out or excited to become more aware through the use [...]

5 Reasons for NetFlow: Network Traffic Management

I’m tired of the same ol’ pitch on why companies should be using NetFlow for Network Traffic Management.  In this post I will leverage idioms to explain how NetFlow and IPFIX are being used beyond most traditional implementations and I won’t “cut any corners”.  Since NetFlow and IPFIX are pretty much all I do every [...]

Threat Detection with NetFlow

Enterasys was one of the first companies to build switches that support NetFlow and certainly understands the value of being able to quickly determine the top talkers, protocols and applications on the network but, this is just the tip of the NetFlow reporting iceberg.  Beyond top N reports, there is a whole underside of NetFlow [...]

Combating Advanced Persistent Threats with NetFlow

Does your company have a strategy for detecting and combating Advanced Persistent Threats? Victims of APTs include Adobe, Google, Lockheed Martin, Sony, RSA and several others.  Lets start by making sure we answer the question: what is an Advanced Persistent Threat? Breaking down the APT acronym we find: Advanced -the adversary is conversant with computer [...]

Employers Ban Streaming: Use NetFlow for Network Traffic Monitoring

Some companies are tired of seeing streaming in their network traffic monitoring efforts.  Companies such as Procter and Gamble (P&G) are banning sites like Facebook.com and NetFlix. CNN cited an internal report that found P&G employees were watching 50,000 five-minute YouTube videos and listening to 4,000 hours of music on Pandora on a typical day. [...]