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title: "What is Netsense ?"
canonical: "https://thoughtdata.refined.site/space/TUD/55643153/What%20is%20Netsense%20%3F"
format: markdown
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ThoughtData's Netsense is a versatile sensor software used for network performance monitoring. NetSense sensor can be deployed as a SNMP poller or as a Netflow collector or as a Deep packet inspection sensor

## **NetSense as a SNMP Poller**

Netsense when deployed as a SNMP Poller periodically polls network devices like routers, switches, firewalls etc for SNMP based network monitoring data sets and extracts rich telemetry information(Key performance indicators/KPIs) about your network performance in real time. Any network device which supports SNMP can be monitored in Enterprise360 via NetSense SNMP poller. NetSense has out of box capability to collect data sets from standard MIBs as well as custom OEM specific vendor MIBs and can be heavily customized to poll any MIB from any OEM vendor. Data collection frequency can be controlled per device and various network OEM vendor specific profiles can be associated with network devices to poll data both standard and custom MIBs. NetSense SNMP poller supports all versions of SNMP including SNMP v1, v2, v3.

## **NetSense as a Netflow Collector**

Netsense when deployed as a netflow collector continuously collects netflow data exported from network devices like routers, switches, firewalls etc and extracts rich telemetry information(Key performance indicators/KPIs) about your network performance in real time. Any network device which exports Netflow data sets in standard netflow v5, v7, v9 , ipfix and sflow version 5 can be ingested by NetSense netflow collector. NetSense netflow collector has out of box capability to collect both granular as well as aggregated netflow datasets along with capabilities to collect only Top N flows per netflow device to optimize netflow data collection across hundreds of network devices.

## **NetSense as a deep packet inspection(DPI) sensor**

Netsense when deployed as a DPI sensor takes network traffic from your critical IT network links as a data feed and extracts rich telemetry information(Key performance indicators/KPIs) about your network and applications performance in real time.

Built on deep packet inspection(DPI) technology Netsense packet sensor has capabilities to extract information from network packets from Layer 2 to Layer 7 of the OSI model.

Netsense packet sensor takes traffic feed from your critical network links in your IT network. There are different options to feed network traffic to Netsense packet sensor. You may choose to create span ports on your switch/routers, mirror the traffic and send it to Netsense packet sensor or choose to make a copy of the traffic on critical links using passive network taps or use a network packet broker device. Choosing right links in your IT network to get visibility into performance of IT network and applications is crucial for an effective monitoring strategy. With Netsense packet sensor in your IT network you do not need any individual software agents on application servers or any devices for your real time application performance monitoring use cases.

**Related Topics**

[Deploying NetSense in On Premises Networks](Netsense_Hardware_Sensor.htm)

[Deploying NetSense in private cloud](Netsense_Virtual_Sensor.htm)

[Deploying Netsense in public cloud](Setting_up_Netsense_packet_sensor_with_right_traffic_feeds_in_public_cloud.htm)

[Resource Requirements for Netsense packet sensor software](Netsense_Hardware_Sensor.htm)

[Setting up traffic monitoring for Netsense sensor](Setting_up_Netsense_packet_sensor_with_right_traffic_feeds_in_on_premises_data_centers.htm)