Understand What's on Your Network — Down to the Application and Flow Level
Network traffic analysis provides deep visibility into who is communicating with what, using which applications, and consuming how much bandwidth — enabling capacity planning, security investigation, application performance troubleshooting, and policy compliance verification.
What RLM Delivers on Network Traffic Analysis
Interface utilization monitoring tells you how full a pipe is; traffic analysis tells you what's filling it. Flow data and deep packet inspection are essential for security investigations, bandwidth cost optimization, and diagnosing application performance problems that ping and SNMP can't explain.
How We Approach Network Traffic Analysis
Every Network Traffic Analysis engagement starts with what you have today and ends with something running in production — with independent evaluation in between.
Traffic Analysis Requirements Assessment
We define your traffic analysis requirements — security investigation, capacity planning, application performance, compliance monitoring — and the data sources (NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX, packet capture) that satisfy each use case.
Platform Evaluation
We evaluate traffic analysis platforms — Kentik, SolarWinds NTA, Darktrace, ExtraHop, and open-source alternatives — against your flow data volumes, analysis depth requirements, and security investigation needs.
Data Collection Architecture
Traffic analysis requires flow or packet data from the right collection points. We design the collection architecture — NetFlow export from routers and switches, TAP placement for packet capture, cloud flow log aggregation.
Baseline & Anomaly Detection
Traffic analysis delivers maximum value when normal behavior is defined and deviations from normal are detected automatically. We design the baselining approach and anomaly detection configuration.
Network Traffic Analysis Evaluation Criteria
What follows is the Network Traffic Analysis evaluation checklist we actually use — the criteria that predict outcomes rather than demo well.
Flow Data vs. Packet Capture
NetFlow/IPFIX provides conversation-level visibility at scale; packet capture provides full content visibility but requires significant storage. Evaluate which data type is appropriate for your analysis requirements.
Encryption Visibility
Encrypted traffic (TLS/HTTPS) limits application identification based on content. Evaluate the platform's encrypted traffic analysis capabilities — JA3 fingerprinting, certificate analysis, and traffic behavior analysis.
Cloud Traffic Coverage
Traditional flow analysis covers on-premises networks. Evaluate VPC flow log collection, cloud load balancer access logs, and the integration between cloud and on-premises traffic data for end-to-end visibility.
Retention Period
Security investigations often require months of historical traffic data. Evaluate data retention capacity and cost against your investigation timeline requirements.
Real-Time vs. Historical Analysis
Security response requires real-time analysis; capacity planning requires historical trending. Evaluate whether the platform provides the real-time streaming analysis needed for security alongside the long-term trending needed for operations.
Integration with SIEM
Traffic analysis data is most valuable when correlated with security events. Evaluate the SIEM integration quality and the alert data model that enriches security investigations with network context.
"The RLM team understood our network complexity from day one. Their vendor-neutral approach helped us find the right solution — not just the one with the biggest marketing budget."
We are paid by the provider you choose, which means we have no reason to steer you toward any particular one.
Where This Matters Most
Sector-specific considerations we see repeatedly in advanced networking engagements.
A Sample of the Advanced Networking Providers We Evaluate
RLM is vendor neutral. These are among 600+ providers in our evaluation set — inclusion here is not an endorsement, and we are paid by the provider you choose, not by any provider in particular. How that works →
Ready to Get Network Traffic Analysis Right?
Start with a no-cost conversation with an RLM network advisor — vendor neutral, no agenda, just clarity on the right path forward for your environment.
Talk to a Network Advisor