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Network

This chapter describes the dashboards on the Network tab to transmit the data onthe DANZ Monitoring Fabric Controller. It includes the following sections.

Rates

The Network → Rates dashboard summarizes information aboutthe analysis of the rates, congestion, and packets in Wireshark and provides the following panels:

  • Flow Rate: Calculates and displays the flow rate in Mbps over a selected time range by summing the upsampledByteCount field and applying a mathematical transformation to derive the bit rate per second.
  • Count of Flows with Congestion TCP Flags: Displays the count of flows with congestion TCP flags over a selected time range, grouping and stacking the results based on the top flow identifiers.
Figure 1. Network > Rates Dashboard

Tunnel

The Network → Tunnel dashboard summarizes information about flows and its composition for the bytes and data and provides the following panels:

  • Flows: Displays the distribution of flows based on the sum of bytes across the top flow types over a selected time range, using a treemap for easy comparison.
  • Composition: Displays the percentage composition of different Tunnel flow types based on the sum of bytes over a selected time range, using a vertically stacked bar chart for comparison.
Figure 2. Network > Tunnel Dashboard

Troubleshooting

  • Verify records are arriving for sFlow® on the home page of the Analytical Node.
  • In Kibana Discover, select data-view flow-sflow-* to determine if any records are arriving.
  • Check the agt field to see if the switch sends sFlow, and the AN parses and shows records.
  • Verify the records contain fields proto, eType, dP, sP. These are the fields required by this feature to categorize tType to MPLS, GRE, GTP, IPinIPv4, IPinIPv6, and VXLAN.

Drop (MoD)

The Network → Drop (MoD) dashboard provides reasons by analyzing overall drops and drops by flow for dropped packets as a Mirror on Drop (MoD) Flow sFlow collector.

The dashboard displays the following panel:
  • Top Dropping Flows: Displays the top flows experiencing the highest packet drops, grouped by flow name and based on the sum of drops over a selected time range.
  • Drops by Time: Displays the trend of packet drops over a selected time range, plotting the sum of drops against time to highlight when network congestion or loss events occurred.
Figure 3. Network > Drop (MoD) Dashboard -Top
Thebottom dashboard displays the following panel:
  • Top Drop Reasons: Displays the top reasons for packet drops over a selected time range by counting the occurrences of different discard reasons.
  • Dropped Packets: Displays the detailed records of dropped packets over a selected time range, including fields like flow information, drop count, and discard reason.
Figure 4. Network > Drop (MoD) Dashboard -Bottom

Troubleshooting

  • Verify records are arriving for sFlow® on the home page of the Analytical Node.
  • In Kibana Discover, select data-view flow-sflow-* to determine if any records are arriving.
  • Check the agt field to see if the switch sends sFlow, and the AN parses and shows records.
  • Verify the records contain field drops & discard_reason.

Hop-by-Hop

The Network → Hop-by-Hop dashboard provides information about multihop bytes and data.

The dashboard displays the following panel:
  • MultiHop Bytes & Latency: Displays the distribution of flows based on the multiple hopping of the bytes across the top flow types.
Figure 5. Network > Hop-by_Hop Dashboard

TCP Analysis

The TCP Analysis dashboard provides information about multihop bytes and data.

The dashboard displays the following panel:
  • TCP Health Flows: Displays the count of TCP health flows observed through Dapper for different flow types over a selected time range, helping monitor network performance and detect anomalies.
  • TCP Window LineChart: Displays the average TCP window size and flight size metrics over a selected time range to monitor flow control behavior and congestion trends as part of TCP Analysis (Dapper).
  • Incidence TCP Network Loss: Displays the number of TCP retransmissions over a selected time range to monitor packet loss and network reliability as part of TCP Analysis (Dapper).
The lower dashboard includes::
  • Incidence of Zero TCP Window: Displays the number of Zero TCP Window events over a selected time range to monitor periods when receivers are unable to accept more data, helping assess congestion and flow control issues as part of TCP Analysis (Dapper).
  • Timings LineChart: Plots the average Round-Trip Time (RTT) and Sender Reaction Time across a selected time range to help monitor network latency and transmission responsiveness as part of TCP Analysis (Dapper).

DMF Recorder Node

This section describes Arista Analytics to use with the DANZ Monitoring Fabric Recorder Node. It includes the following sub-sections.

Overview

The DMF Recorder Node captures network packets to disk, enabling rapid and efficient retrieval of specific packets. A single DANZ Monitoring Fabric Controller manages multiple DMF Recorder Nodes. The Controller uses DANZ Monitoring Fabric policies to direct packets to the recorders. The Controller provides APIs for:
  • Querying packets across multiple recorders.
  • Viewing recorder status, statistics, errors, and warnings.

DANZ Monitoring Fabric Policy determines matching packets to one or more recorder interfaces. The DMF Recorder Node interface defines the switch and port where the recorder connects to the fabric. A DANZ Monitoring Fabric policy treats these as delivery interfaces.

The recorder node visualization is present in both NetFlow and TCPflow dashboards.

General Operation

To retrieve packets from the DMF Recorder Node for analysis using Arista Analytics, select the Controller and log in from the Recorder Node window on the NetFlow or Flows dashboard. To add a new Controller, click the small Select Controller icon and add the Controller. After logging in to the DMF Recorder Node, the system displays the following dialog:
Figure 6. DMF Recorder Node

The Recorder Node window can compose and submit a query to the DMF Recorder Node. Select any of the fields shown to create a query and click Submit. The Switch Controller link at the bottom of the dialog can log in to a different DMF Recorder Node.

Select the Recorder Summary query to determine the number of packets in the recorder database. Then, apply filters to retrieve a reasonable number of packets with the most interesting information.

You can modify the filters in the recorder query until a Size query returns the most beneficial number of packets.

Query Parameters

The following parameters are available for queries:
  • Query Type
    • Size: Retrieve a summary of the matching packets based on the contents and search criteria stored in the recorder node. Here, Size refers to the total frame size of the packet.
    • AppID: Retrieve details about the matching packets based on the contents and search query in the recorder node datastore, where the packets are stored. Use this query to see what applications are in encrypted packets.
    • Packet Data: Retrieve the raw packets that match the query. At the end of a search query, it generates a URL pointing to the location of the pcap if the search query is successful.
    • Packet Objects: Retrieve the packet objects that match the query. At the end of a search query, it generates a URL pointing to the location of the objects (images) if the search query is successful.
    • Replay: Identify the Delivery interface in the field that appears, where the replayed packets are forwarded.
    • FlowAnalysis: Select the flow analysis type (HTTP, HTTP Request, DNS, Hosts, IPv4, IPv6, TCP, TCP Flow Health, UDP, RTP Streams, SIP Correlate, SIP Health).
  • Time/Date Format: Identify the matching packets' time range as an absolute value or relative to a specific time, including the present.
  • Source Info: Match a specific source IP address/MAC Address/CIDR address.
  • Bi-directional: Enabling this will query bi-directional traffic.
  • Destination Info: Match a specific destination IP address/MAC Address/CIDR address.
  • IP Protocol: Match the selected IP protocol.
  • Community ID: Flow hashing.
Additional Parameters
  • VLAN: Match the VLAN ID.
  • Outer VLAN: Match the outer VLAN ID when multiple VLAN IDs exist.
  • Inner/Middle VLAN: Match the inner VLAN ID of two VLAN IDs or the middle VLAN ID of three VLAN IDs.
  • Innermost VLAN: Match innermost VLAN ID of three VLAN IDs.
  • Filter Interfaces: Match packets received at the specified DANZ Monitoring Fabric filter interfaces.
  • Policy Names: Match packets selected by the specified DANZ Monitoring Fabric policies.
  • Max Size: Set the maximum size of the query results in bytes.
  • Max Packets: Limits the number of packets the query returns to this set value.
  • MetaWatch Device ID: Matches on device ID/serial number found in the trailer of the packet stamped by the MetaWatch Switch.
  • MetaWatch Port ID: Matches on application port ID found in the trailer of the packet stamped by the MetaWatch Switch.
  • Packet Recorders: Query a particular DMF Recorder Node. Default is none or not selected; all packet recorders configured on the DANZ Monitoring Fabric receive the query.
  • Dedup: Enable/Disable Dedup.
  • Query Preview: After expanding, this section provides the Stenographer syntax used in the selected query. You can cut and paste the Stenographer query and include it in a REST API request to the DMF Recorder Node.

Using Recorder Node with Analytics

For interactive analysis, any set of packets exceeding 1 GB becomes unwieldy. To reduce the number of packets to a manageable size, complete the following steps:

  1. Select the Summary query to determine the number of packets captured by the Recorder. Apply filters until the packet set is manageable (less than 1 GB).
  2. Search over the metadata from all sources and analyze it to retrieve a limited and useful set of packets based on source address, destination address, timeframe, and other filtering attributes.
  3. Submit the Stenographer query, which is used by the DMF Recorder Node and automatically composed by Arista Analytics.

    You can perform flow analysis without downloading the packets from Recorder. Select specific rows to show Throughput, RTT, Out of order, and Re-transmissions. Packet varieties like HTTP, HTTP request, DNS, Hosts, IPv4, IPv6, TCP, TCPFlow Health, UDP, RTP Streams, SIP Correlate, and SIP Streams analyze the flows. Then, sort and search as required and save to CSV for later analysis. You can search over a given duration of time for the IP address by exact match or prefix match.

    The Replay set directs large packets to an archive for later analysis; this frees up the Recorder to capture a new packet set.

    Use DMF Recorder Node to identify the applications on your network that are encrypting packets. Select a Recorder Detail query to see the applications with encrypted packets.

    Refer to the DANZ Monitoring Fabric Deployment Guide for information about installing and setting up the DMF Recorder Node. For details about using the Recorder from the DANZ Monitoring Fabric Controller GUI or CLI, refer to the DANZ Monitoring Fabric User Guide.
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