RFC 2063 (rfc2063) - Page 2 of 37

Traffic Flow Measurement: Architecture

RFC 2063         Traffic Flow Measurement: Architecture     January 1997


 5 Meter Readers                                                     26
   5.1 Identifying Flows in Flow Records  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
   5.2 Usage Records, Flow Data Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
   5.3 Meter to Meter Reader:  Usage Record Transmission. . . . . .  27
 6 Managers                                                          28
   6.1 Between Manager and Meter:  Control Functions  . . . . . . .  28
   6.2 Between Manager and Meter Reader:  Control Functions   . . .  29
   6.3 Exception Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   6.4 Standard Rule Sets   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
 7 APPENDICES                                                        33
   7.1 Appendix A: Network Characterisation . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   7.2 Appendix B: Recommended Traffic Flow Measurement Capabilities 34
   7.3 Appendix C: List of Defined Flow Attributes  . . . . . . . .  35
   7.4 Appendix D: List of Meter Control Variables  . . . . . . . .  36
 8 Acknowledgments                                                   36
 9 References                                                        37
10 Security Considerations                                           37
11 Authors' Addresses                                                37

1 Statement of Purpose and Scope

   This document describes an architecture for traffic flow measurement
   and reporting for data networks which has the following
   characteristics:

     - The traffic flow model can be consistently applied to any
       protocol/application at any network layer (e.g.  network,
       transport, application layers).

     - Traffic flow attributes are defined in such a way that they are
       valid for multiple networking protocol stacks, and that traffic
       flow measurement implementations are useful in MULTI-PROTOCOL
       environments.

     - Users may specify their traffic flow measurement requirements
       in a simple manner, allowing them to collect the flow data they
       need while ignoring other traffic.

     - The data reduction effort to produce requested traffic flow
       information is placed as near as possible to the network
       measurement point.  This reduces the volume of data to be
       obtained (and transmitted across the network for storage),
       and minimises the amount of processing required in traffic
       flow analysis applications.







Brownlee, et. al.             Experimental