A flow is a customized way of categorizing network packets based on a single attribute or a combination of attributes. Flows enable you to further allocate network resources. For an overview of flows, see Network Resource Management by Using Flows.
Using flows for managing network resources involves the following steps:
Creating the flow.
A flow is created based on a single attribute or a combination of attributes that are derived from the information in a packet's header. You can use any combination of attributes to organize the packet traffic into a flow. You can use attributes such as the IP address, transport protocol, and DS field. Starting with Oracle Solaris 11.3, you can create flows that have different combination of attributes on a datalink.
Customizing the flow's use of resources by setting properties that pertain to network resources. Currently, bandwidth, priority, and rank properties can be associated with flows.
For more information, see Configuring Flows.