What Is Flows

[YBerllan]

Hi

Could someone tells us what the definition is for the column "Flows" please as we are unable to find a help definition to explain?  

[BrechtSchamp]

What is a flow?

A flow is defined by the firewall as one connection socket. Each port used in communication with each source-destination pair is one socket. For example, 10.1.1.1 on port 234 communicating with 10.2.2.2 on port 432 is one socket.

Source:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Traffic_Analytics_and_the_Layer_7_F...

[YBerllan]

Hi

So what triggers the count if you have one device only using say Facebook for a day and you have a count of around 200. Is it when they request a new page for example? 

Kind regards

John

[BrechtSchamp · Accepted solution]

The way I see it, every time a new TCP connection is established to a certain socket it's a new flow.

In your example connection towards TCP 443 on a facebook server it will be counted as a flow. So per client using facebook the number of flows will definitely go up, but one client might also have multiple flows if they make multiple connections to facebook (multiple browser tabs for example).

Whether the connections remain open or are closed each time depends on the application and type of flow. Google for example has a desktop app that keep certain flows open for the sync with Google Drive.