With remote workers becoming more and more common, collaboration software is being leveraged by more organizations. Monitoring Zoom traffic in your network can offer some insights into collaboration usage trends over time.
This the third article in our series describing how to craft custom applications in NTA.
Next Generation Network-Based Application Recognition Protocol (NBAR2)
If your networking infrastructure supports the NBAR2 protocol and you are running Protocol Pack 41.0.0 or later, then you are already seeing Zoom as its own application family. It will appear (after being detected) as “zoom-meetings.”
If your network infrastructure doesn’t support NBAR2, you can still get the classification for Zoom communications.
Custom Application Build
A custom application to monitor Zoom requires two parts. The first part is building a custom IP Group with the target addresses of the application. Thankfully, Zoom is good about publishing the IP information.
Build the IP Group
From the NetFlow settings page, scroll down to IP Address Groups.
Build a new group and add the addresses.
These are rarely small lists, so we’ve expedited the process by providing a file you can import.
If you choose to import it, be sure to “append” to the existing list of IPs.
Build the Multi-Port Application
The last step for building the custom application is configuring the ports for traffic matching. From the NetFlow settings page, select “Application and Service Ports.”
Click “Add Application” and give it a name, enter “80, 443, 3478-3479, 8801-8810” in the port list, and select Zoom in the Destination IP Address.
Submit all your changes.
Now the new custom application will show up in your Flow Navigator.
