Enabling and Managing Forwarders
Designate an Enterprise Agent
Before exporting network flow data, you need to install and/or designate a ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent as a forwarder within your network. Then, on the ThousandEyes platform, you need to configure the agent to recognize and pass along the exported flow data so it can be ingested into the platform.
Installing a New Supported Agent
If you do not yet have a supported Enterprise Agent to use as a forwarder, you can install an Enterprise Agent directly from the ThousandEyes Platform. See Forwarder Requirements for information about supported agents, and the relevant article in the Enterprise Agent Installing section for installation instructions.
Finding an Existing Supported Agent
If you already have Enterprise Agents installed, you can check whether any of them are on a supported device.
Select the Enterprise Agents screen.
On the Agents tab, open the Add a filter dropdown.
Select Installation Type.
In the subsequent filter dropdown, select Virtual Appliance and/or Cisco Application Hosting.
The list of agents automatically updates in line with the filters selected and the total appears to the right of the search field.
Though you may have Enterprise Agents on supported devices, you must still check that the supported devices meet all other compatibility requirements for Traffic Insights in order for forwarding to work. See Forwarder Requirements.
If no existing Enterprise Agents are on supported devices or don't meet other forwarder requirements, click Add New Enterprise Agent on the top right of the screen and follow the prompts within the relevant article in the Enterprise Agent Installing section.
Once you have identified or installed an Enterprise Agent on a supported device that meets Traffic Insights compatibility requirements, you can enable it for forwarding.
Enable Forwarding
Turning on the Enterprise Agent's forwarding capabilities is a necessary step to enabling the agent to receive flow data from your traffic monitor and forwarding this data to ThousandEyes.
Click the Enterprise Agents screen.
Select the agent you want to designate as a forwarder from the list to open the edit panel.
Select the Advanced Settings tab.
Scroll down to Agent Modules.
The Traffic Insights status of this agent shows as either Enabled or Disabled.
If Traffic Insights is Disabled, click the Enable button and confirm.
Click Save Changes.
View and Manage Your Forwarders
Now that you have forwarding enabled for Traffic Insights, you can keep track of the Enterprise Agents you use for forwarding via two methods.
View Your Forwarders Via Agent Settings
Select the Enterprise Agents screen.
On the Agents tab, open the Add a filter dropdown.
Select Traffic Insights.
Select Enabled.
All devices enabled as forwarders for Traffic Insights are displayed.
View and Manage Your Forwarders Via the Forwarders Screen
The Forwarders screen in Traffic Insights > Settings displays only the Enterprise Agents you have enabled for forwarding.
Once Traffic Insights setup is complete, the Forwarders screen allows you to:
View traffic flowing through each Enterprise Agent in the time frame chosen; choose from the last 2 hours up to the last 2 days.
Filter results by Agent Name or External Collector.
Clear Stats to refresh collection of all forwarder data to restart from now.
The cards above the table (visible when flow consolidation is turned on) display overview statistics about the data onscreen:
The left-most card shows you the average FPS (flow records per second) rate for all your forwarders in the chosen time frame, as well as what percentage of that FPS rate is from flows with multiple records.
The two right cards show total throughput in bps going in and out of all your forwarders in the same time frame.
The screen also has an External Collector Management button that you can use to configure sending flows from your forwarders to another collector besides ThousandEyes. To set up an external collector, see Connecting External Collectors.
Understanding the Forwarder Table
Agent Name: The ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent name.
Listening Ports: TCP and UDP listening ports, editable via the ellipsis, below.
External Collector: Optional; enable on the Edit panel via the ellipsis, below.
UDP Ingress: Kbps and packets per second.
TCP Ingress: Kbps and packets per second.
Dropped Events: Number of dropped packet(s).
Egress: Kbps.
External Collector Mirrored: Kbps.
Total FPS (Avg/Peak): Total flow records per second sent from the forwarder to ThousandEyes. Shows average and peak values.
Associated FPS (Avg/Peak) (only visible when flow consolidation is turned on): Flow records per second for records associated with the same conversation and reported by multiple traffic monitors. Conversations associated with multiple monitors are stitched together (consolidated) to appear as one conversation entry to ease data visualization and analysis. Shows average and peak values.
Unsupported FPS (Avg/Peak): Flow records per second received by the forwarder and discarded due to unsupported format. Shows average and peak values.
... (ellipsis): Click to Edit or Clear Stats for each row.
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