Collecting network traffic data using Packetbeat

We've looked at how you can observe a workload, the host, and the configuration it runs on and the availability of the workload to end users. One final aspect that we're going to look at to establish comprehensive monitoring is collecting, decoding, and analyzing host network data using Packetbeat.

Networking is a critical part of most workloads; this is especially true in the case of our Recipe Search Service web server. Network packets contain information on the following:

• The source and type of network traffic being served.
• Details of protocols (and versions) being used and their distribution as a whole.
• Data about network latency, request and response sizes, and some metadata about the content of the traffic. For example, SSL traffic can indicate the TLS version in use, metadata about the certificate authorities and expiry dates, and so on.

Packet data is also quite useful in detecting security...