Network traffic capture and storage for IPv6 network

Network traffic characteristics in operational network is crucial to network design and operation. As the network bandwidth grows, it's difficult for capturing and storing a detailed record for every packet. In this paper we present a traffic capture system which is implemented at network processor. Both lab experiment and real network operation prove that the capture system is able to process gigabit line rate with a good stability. A data compression method focusing on IPv6 address redundancy and combining flow and packet information together is given for IPv6 trace and alleviates the data storage pressure. Tests show it can compress the storage several fold without losing detailed trace information.