VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures. It allows data centers upgrades for cloud computing, as well as upgrades for public clouds and hybrid clouds, according to VMWare.

The newest version of VMware vSphere, 5.1, has several new features and enhancements. For example, VMware vSphere ESX v5.1 supports IPFIX (Internet Protocol Flow Information Export.) It improves monitoring of network performance which in turn leads to better overall management of virtual networks and virtual servers.

In a recent blog post, Jimmy Wendler, Plixer International (News - Alert), showed how to configure IPFIX for VMware vSphere ESX v5.1. The goal is to have IPFIX enabled on a vSphere distributed switch.

The first steps are to right click on the virtual switch and then click on the NetFlow tab. This lets users edit settings of a distributed switch.

As administrators configure, remember there are choices on how IPFIX on distributed switches can be enabled. They can be utilized on the port group level, on an individual port level or on an uplink level.

A screen will display different options, with different configurations. Also, the collector settings of the IP address and Port is configured based on information that has been collected from a collector tool. In addition, advanced settings control the timeout function and sampling rate. To configure IPFIX at the port level, select the NetFlow override tab. When selecting this feature, flows will be monitored even when the port group IPFIX was disabled. There are other options, too. Internal flows of the virtual infrastructure can be monitored by selecting the “process internal flows only” option.

There are other related improvements including the fact that flexible NetFlow now allows for the logging of NAT (network address translation) and firewall events, according to TMCnet.

Also, traffic analyzer tools such as Scrutinizer – which provides flow and security log analysis as well as reporting – collects and reports NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow and related flow technologies. It provides real-time awareness and history on the network. It can be used as a physical or virtual appliance or a Windows download. With a recent upgrade, the robust solution offers network planning, network traffic accounting, and usage-based network billing.

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