A designer is working with a large bank to redesign their network. The designer wants to minimize complaints regarding slow application response times across the WAN. It is suspected that currently…

SNMP monitors device health and interface counters but does not provide per-flow QoS marking details needed to validate traffic classification policies.

IPFIX (IP Flow Information Export) collects and exports per-flow statistics including DSCP markings and traffic class values, giving engineers visibility into how traffic is being classified at each point in the network. This flow-level telemetry allows direct validation of QoS mapping correctness without requiring full packet capture, and it scales across WAN links where a protocol analyzer would be impractical.

IP SLA measures active performance metrics such as jitter, latency, and packet loss but does not inspect or report on DSCP values applied to production traffic flows.

A protocol analyzer can show QoS markings on captured packets but lacks the flow aggregation and scalability required to validate QoS policy adherence across a distributed WAN.

NBAR is a traffic classification engine used to identify application types and apply QoS markings, but it is a marking tool rather than a reporting or validation tool for existing QoS mappings.