Components

There are three types of units in Distributed Architecture (DA): Master, Proxy, and Slave units. Master and Proxy units are dedicated hardware or virtual appliances. Slave Units are traditional Flowmon Collectors (hardware or virtual appliances). To find out the hardware specification of Master and Proxy units, refer to the Flowmon Collectors specification document.

Master unit

The master unit is the central console for managing and configuring other units. It provides a central interface to all data from connected Flowmon Collectors. You can use the web application for data visualization, querying, reporting, and analysis. The master unit gathers data from other units and assembles the final result.

You can deploy multiple master units with different priorities (a lower priority number means higher priority). You perform configuration changes only on the top-priority instance (priority 1), called the Top Priority Master Unit (TPM). You configure slave units, proxy units, and groups on the TPM. The TPM can initiate data queries on proxy units and obtain results. Other master units are synchronized with the TPM and can be set as the TPM if the current TPM fails.

The master unit requires a special license.

Slave unit

Slave units store and process assigned parts of flow data. For more information, see the Flow distribution models page. You can add more slave units as needed. Proxy units manage slave units. Slave units can work in two ways: as standalone slaves or proxy group slaves. Proxy group slaves operate as described below (master-proxy-slave deployment mode). A standalone slave is a slave unit that also operates as a proxy unit. In this mode, there is only one slave unit in the proxy group (master-slave deployment mode).

Proxy unit

Proxy units are necessary for configurations with multiple slave units (proxy group slaves) in one group. The master unit only communicates with proxy units to save bandwidth between locations and simplify firewall configuration. The proxy unit forwards all requests to and from the slave units in a proxy group. The proxy unit is used as a single target of flow export (for example, in one geographical location) and distributes flow data to its slave units. All proxy group slaves in a proxy group must be licensed as the same collector model. For groups with a single slave unit, no proxy unit is needed, and the slave acts as a proxy for itself (standalone slave).

One proxy unit with one or more slave units assigned to it creates a proxy group. Only one proxy unit is allowed in a proxy group.

Proxy units require a special license.