Implementation of a Flexible NetFlow Collector

The key aim of this work is to design and prototypically implement a Flexible NetFlow collector to be used in a distributed environment. One important aspect of the work is the identification of possible libraries and tools that can be reused and integrated, like nfdump and SQLite. The implemented prototype should provide the following components:

• Flexible NetFlow Records Receiver: a receiver that is able to extract flow records from incoming Flexible NetFlow packets. The receiver shall be provided as a library with a well-defined API, so it can be reused in future applications. The performance of the implementation shall be considered especially.

• Flexible NetFlow Records Database: a low resource-intensive database that is able to store Flexible NetFlow Records and query them at a later stage.

• Flexible NetFlow Records Exporter: an exporter that is able to send flow records in case Flexible NetFlow records need to be sent to other network entities. This shall be achieved using the IPFIX protocol.