How we built Network Analytics v2

This post introduces Network Analytics v2, a fundamental redesign of the backend systems providing real-time network layer traffic visibility for Magic Transit and Spectrum customers. It addresses the limitations of the previous version by enabling the reporting of stateful mitigation systems (like flowtrackd) and adopting principles from traditional network observability (Netflow/sFlow). The new design allows individual software components to emit metadata-rich packet samples, creating a more flexible and future-proof observability system. Key technical challenges in modifying existing systems like xdpd and l4drop to emit these samples are discussed.