Host groups
The NetProfiler enables you to assign hosts to groups so that you can track, report and alert on organizationally meaningful categories of traffic, such as traffic by host function or traffic by host location. This allows you to view traffic statistics for groups of similar hosts and to view the traffic of the same hosts from multiple perspectives.
For example, a view of the network categorized by functions might include a host group for web servers, another host group for email servers, and so forth. A second view of the network, categorized by location, might include all hosts in New York in one group, all hosts in London in another group, and so forth. So email servers in New York could belong to a group named "email" if you are using the by-function view of the network, or to a group named "New York" if you are using the by-location view of the network.
The NetProfiler is shipped with three types of grouping already defined: ByFunction, ByInternalHosts and ByLocation. These are listed on the submenu under Definitions > Host Groups. For each of these group types, you can define host groups for tracking, reporting and alerting. more
If you want to track network activity in terms of some grouping attribute other than the predefined host group types, you can define a new group type to provide a view of hosts on the network in terms of groups of that type. more
In addition to the host groups that you create, the NetProfiler itself creates certain host groups. When SteelHead appliances are configured to send configuration information to the NetProfiler, the NetProfiler automatically defines a host group type for each SteelHead appliance. Within that host group type, each SteelHead site is treated as a host group. Within the host group for each SteelHead site, traffic between hosts is reported just as traffic between hosts that are not associated with a SteelHead.
Because there may be a large number of SteelHead appliances in a network, the NetProfiler hides SteelHead groups by default. If you want to include SteelHead group types and host groups (SteelHead site traffic) in reports that display host groups, you must enable the display of SteelHead appliance-based group types and groups. This is done in the Favorites column of the Definition > Host Groups > Manage Host Group Types page. more
Managing host groups for a selected host group type (such as ByFunction)
Managing host group types (entire views of the network)