NetFlow and sFlow Configuration Guide on Cisco 8000 Series Routers, Cisco IOS XR Releases

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NetFlow and sFlow Configuration Guide on Cisco 8000 Series Routers, Cisco IOS XR Releases

Feature history tables

Updated: June 9, 2026

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Explains the release history and supported hardware for sFlow-related features.

A feature history table is a reference resource that

provides details about system alerts such as BUFFER_SIZE_EXCEEDED, which signals that the flow monitor buffer has reached its capacity with sampled flow data due to a low export rate limit or a high sampling rate,
includes BUFFER_EXCEEDING_STOPPED alerts that indicate when the flow monitor buffer returns to its regular state, and
documents enhancements such as tunnel encapsulation, where the packet header supports an extended structure encompassing tunnel header information.

Feature history and hardware support for sFlow-related features

Provides a lookup table of sFlow-related features, their release history, and supported hardware platforms.

Table 1. Feature History Table
Feature Name	Release Introduced	Description
System alerts related to sFlow	Release 7.5.3	The following syslog notifications are available with sFlow: FLOW_SAMPLES_DROPPED - This alert is seen whenever the buffer becomes full with sampled flow data, either due to a high sampling rate or an increase in the traffic rate. FLOW_SAMPLES_DROPPING_STOPPED - This alert is seen when the buffer reverts to its regular state. BUFFER_SIZE_EXCEEDED - This alert signals that the flow monitor buffer has reached its capacity with sampled flow data, which could be a result of a low export rate limit or a high sampling rate. BUFFER_EXCEEDING_STOPPED - This alert is seen when the flow monitor buffer reverts to its regular state.
Ingress sFlow enhancements	Release 7.3.3	The incoming sFlow packet offers the following enhancements to improve scalability and decrease the volume of packets received: Expansion of sFlow datagram size—from 1500B to 9KB Tunnel encapsulation—The packet header now supports an extended structure encompassing tunnel header information. The egress packet extracts the tunnel information during decapsulation. sFlow collector indicates discarded packets and locally targeted packets at the output interfaces, in a specific format along with drop value.
sFlow for L2 interfaces	Release 7.3.1	Ingress sFlow on an L2 interface is introduced. Support for sFlow existed in earlier releases.
Sampled flow	Release 7.2.12	Sampled flow (sFlow) allows you to monitor real-time traffic in data networks. It uses sampling mechanism in the sFlow agent software to monitor traffic and to forward the sample data to the central data collector.

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