Flow (Internet Protocol)

While the Internet Protocol is connectionless, capacity planning of networks needs an understanding of aggregate traffic, which is commonly defined in measurement of flows. At a minimum, a flow is identified by a source and destination IP address; it may be further refined by information such as IP protocol identifier, and TCP or UDP source and destination port numbers. Yet additional distinctions may be made among flows based on their quality of service flags.

Internet Protocol flow information export is the general term for methods to collect and report flow statistics.