Introduction

General System Architecture

The Flowmon Packet Investigator (FPI) provides a complete solution for network traffic recording and subsequent automated analysis. The system architecture contains two building blocks: a probe appliance and a collector appliance. The Typical system topology figure below shows a typical system topology.

Probe

The probe appliance performs network monitoring and network traffic recording. Recordings are forwarded in real time to a collector appliance for storage and analysis. The whole system is controlled using a web interface.

Collector

The collector appliance (also called the control unit) is a central element that combines easy and effective probe control with the storage of recordings. The collector appliance enables:

• effective probe control with minimum latency,

• setting up recording rules for probes,

• management from a web interface,

• storage of recordings,

• analysis of directly recorded or uploaded recordings.