Netflow & AVC Rockstar

This post is about my recent digital content development for WiFiTraining. In this digital course, I have dived deep into Netflow & AVC (Application Visibility & Control). Primarily course is focusing on Wireless, but we cover the basics of the wired environment as well. In that way, you can get a strong foundational knowledge of these features.

Like any other digital content that I have developed in the past, I have used a lab setup to make this class more practical. Here is the topology of my lab setup which includes an ISR 1941 Router, Cisco 3504 WLC (AireOS), and Cisco 9800-CL (IOS-XE) controller.

This digital content includes ~ 6 hours of recorded lessons broken into 5 modules. Here is the course flow and you can check it out as I have linked to some of those lessons’ videos. Here is the course introduction video so that you can get an overall idea about this digital course.

In the first module, we discuss Cisco Netflow concepts and Cisco NBAR (Network Based Application Recognition) setting the foundation for the rest of the class.

[M1] Flow Monitoring
L1 – Netflow Overview (22 min)
L2 – Flow Cache (22 min)
L3 – Flow Collectors (23 min)
L4 – NBAR (16 min)

In Module 2, the focus is Netflow v5 & v9, and then look at how to configure & monitor it in wired devices (Cisco ISR). I have briefly discussed Netflow support in firewalls as well in this module.

[M2] Wired Netflow
L1 – Netflow v5 (20 min)
L2 – Flexible Netflow (8 min)
L3 – Netflow v9 (22 min)
L4 – Firewall Netflow (8 min)

As Wireless is the primary focus of our content development, I have spent a good time talking about the Netflow feature in Cisco AireOS WLCs. You may already find many blog posts in my blog about AireOS WLC Netflow support since the feature was introduced around 2013. AireOS Netflow feature evolved in AireOS over time and you will learn about those changes as well.

[M3] Wireless Netflow (AireOS)
L1 – AireOS Netflow (15 min)
L2 – AireOS AVC (18 min)
L3 – Local mod Netflow (34 min)
L4 – FlexConnect AVC (26 min)

The next module, Cisco 9800 WLC NetFlow & AVC discussed in detail.

[M4] Flow Monitoring
L1 – 9800 Netflow Intro (10 min)
L2 – 9800 Netflow Config(36 min)
L3 – 9800 Local AVC (25 min)
L4 – 9800 Flex AVC (27 min)

In the final module, I talk about deployment considerations and practical challenges you may face. Since more than 95% of internet traffic is encrypted, traditional flow collection solutions face the challenges of getting the required visibility. With the introduction of highly secure protocols like QUIC & HTTP3 flow monitoring will become a real challenge.

[M5] Deployment Considerations
L1 – Wired Data Analysis (24 min)
L2 – Internet Security (11 min)
L3 – Deployment Challenges (22 min)