nettopriser

NetTopRiser is an open-source software project designed to visualize and monitor network topologies and traffic. It provides a data model for devices, interfaces, and links, along with real-time dashboards and historical analytics. The project emphasizes an extensible architecture, allowing users to add new data sources and visualization modules.

NetTopRiser uses a client-server architecture. A central server ingests metrics and events from collectors such as SNMP, NetFlow/IPFIX, sFlow, and syslog, and stores them in a time-series database. A web-based user interface presents interactive topology maps, layer-2/3 views, traffic visualizations, and dashboards. The server exposes REST and WebSocket APIs to enable external tools and custom dashboards. A plugin framework supports data-source adapters and visualization modules.

Core concepts include devices, interfaces, links, and metrics. Features include real-time topology rendering, traffic visualization, alerting and anomaly detection, templated dashboards, role-based access control, and export/import of configurations. The project supports containerized deployment and can run on-premises or in private clouds, with options for multi-tenant deployments in larger environments.

NetTopRiser originated as a community-driven initiative by network engineers and is hosted on public repositories. It is distributed under an open-source license. The project maintains an issue tracker, documentation, and a roadmap, with contributions from individuals and organizations.

In practice, NetTopRiser is used by mid-sized networks to understand topology and flow patterns. Strengths include transparent topology visualization and flexible data integration; limitations include a learning curve for new users and potential performance considerations on very large networks or with dense data sources.