VMware Aria Operations for Networks collects the flow data from various data sources in your network that has flow export capabilities, such as VMware vSphere Distributed Switch, VMware NSX Distributed Firewall and calculates traffic information.

To view the flow metrics on the user interface, do the following:

  1. Enter Flows on the search bar.
  2. On the search result page, click Add More Filters under the Filters option.
  3. Select Metrics. The metrics are displayed to the right.
  4. Select the metric you want to view.
Table 1. Flow Metrics
Metric Name Metric API Name Description Supported by Databus
Active Sessions Count flow.openSessionCount.absolute.latest.number

The total number of active or open sessions that are aggregated into this flow.

A session consists of 5 tuples (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port, and protocol).

The aggregated flow consists of 4 tuples (source IP, destination IP, destination port, and protocol).

For a client server session, incoming and outgoing sessions are aggregated into a single flow.
Average TCP RTT (ms) flow.nsxTcpRtt.absolute.average.microsecond Average TCP RTT of the flow within the specified duration. If no duration is specified, the default is last 24 hours.
Destination Bytes flow.dstBytes.delta.summation.bytes Total number of bytes sent by the destination of the flow. Yes
Flow Packet Count flow.totalPackets.delta.summation.number

Total number of packets exchanged between the source and the destination of a flow.

A flow consists of 4 tuples (source IP, destination IP, destination port and protocol) and is an aggregation of sessions identified by 5 tuples (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port and protocol).

For a client server connection, incoming and outgoing sessions are aggregated into a single flow.

 Yes
Maximum TCP RTT flow.nsxTcpRtt.absolute.maximum.microsecond Maximum TCP RTT of the flow within the specified duration. If no duration is specified, the default is last 24 hours.
Packet Loss flow.packetDrop.ratio.average.percent Ratio of the number of packets dropped to the total number of packets transmitted.
Retransmitted Packet Ratio (%) flow.retransmittedPacketsTx.ratio.average.percent Ratio of the number of packets retransmitted to the total number of packets transmitted.
Sessions flow.allowedSessionCount.delta.summation.number

The total number of established sessions that have been aggregated into a flow.

A session consists of 5 tuples (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port and protocol). The aggregated flow consists of 4 tuples (source IP, destination IP, destination port and protocol).

For a client server session, incoming and outgoing sessions are aggregated into a single flow.

 Yes
Source Bytes flow.srcBytes.delta.summation.bytes Total number of bytes sent by the source of the flow. Yes
TCP Retransmission Ratio (%) flow.tcpRetransmittedPackets.ratio.maximum.percent Ratio of TCP retransmitted packets to total number of TCP transmitted packets. Yes
Total Traffic flow.totalBytes.delta.summation.bytes Total number of bytes exchanged between the source and destination of a flow. A flow consists of 4 tuples (source IP, destination IP, destination port and protocol) and is an aggregation of sessions identified by 5 tuples (source IP, destination IP, source port, destination port and protocol).

For a client server connection, incoming and outgoing sessions are aggregated into a single flow.

 Yes
Traffic Rate flow.totalBytesRate.rate.average.bitsPerSecond Average of incoming and outgoing traffic. Yes

To learn about the retention period of flow metrics, see Metric Definitions.