Flodar: flow visualization of network traffic

The author and his colleagues at the National Security Agency designed an application called Flodar (short for Flow Radar) that monitors the flow of network traffic. The techniques and visuals used in Flodar can apply to a variety of applications. While many flow visualizations concentrate on the path of network traffic, this system monitors the status of individual servers within the system. In their particular system, they need to monitor two types of servers: those that send information at semi-regular intervals and those that receive this information and store it temporarily, waiting for users to read or process the information within a certain time. They are not as concerned with the path the data takes to get from the sending server to the storage server. They are more concerned with ensuring the sender transmits regularly and that the information on the storage server is processed before being overwritten. Therefore, monitoring the system's timeliness remains the primary objective for Flodar