NetFlow is an industry standard for network traffic monitoring. Although originally developed by Cisco, it has since become an industry standard. Once enabled, it can be used to capture IP traffic statistics on all the interfaces where NetFlow is enabled, and send them as records to the NetFlow collector software. Starting with vSphere Distributed Switch 5.0, we can enable NetFlow at the DSwitch or DPortGroup level.
The following procedure explains how to enable NetFlow on a DSwitch:
Select the DSwitch on which you intend to enable NetFlow, and navigate to Manage | Settings.
Under the Settings tab, select NetFlow, and click on Edit to bring up the Edit NetFlow Settings window:
Specify the values for IP address and Port of the NetFlow collector machine, and then specify the value for Switch IP address.
Modify the Advanced Settings if necessary, and click on OK:
