“Free” NetFlow monitoring tools are mostly trial software they are fully functional but only for a certain period of time, e.g., 30 days. There is one more important fact that we should mention. After all, it is in the company’s interest to have its product support these new versions and implementations and thus be more competitive. It should also be mentioned that new NetFlow versions and their implementations are typically added early in commercial NetFlow analyzers.
These are the hidden costs associated with maintenance. On the other hand, your investment in maintaining the product is likely to grow in the future. On the one hand, you can easily add new features to the code or fix bugs if needed because the source code is publicly available. At the very least, your IT team will be dealing with numerous security updates to the underlying software on which the open source NetFlow analyzer is built. The first rule of programming, “If it works, don’t touch anything” simply does not work in this case. Therefore, you must rely heavily on a team of experienced administrators to maintain your product. Any update may pose a potential risk that the product will stop working. There may be compatibility issues with existing software or hardware or with future updates. In the case of even the best open-source NetFlow analyzers, you have no guarantee that the software will perform as you wish in your network. You do not wait days or weeks and, in some cases even years, for a fix or patch. You paid for the product, so you are entitled to support. You do not have to browse internet forums for hours and rely on the advice of anonymous volunteers with different levels of knowledge.
Have you ever found that a network usage reported by your commercial NetFlow analyzer does not match the actual values or that software contains bugs? No worries, there is a single point of contact for any of these issues. Proprietary versus Open-Source NetFlow Analyzers
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