Portal Overview

This article provides a basic introduction to the Kentik portal.

Notes:

• For browser support and login procedures for the portal, see Kentik Portal.

• As of March 31, 2025, Kentik’s v3 portal is fully retired and is no longer accessible. For help transitioning to our current portal, see Customer Care.

Portal Sections

The Kentik portal consists of modules, some called “workflows”, that help you efficiently access information for specific networking use cases.

In the Portal Main Menu, the most common/general modules are featured at the top of the left column:

• Alerting

• Journeys

• Kentik Map

• Library

• My Kentik Portal

• Observation Deck

The remaining modules are categorized into sections with multiple modules:

• Settings: Administrative controls to tailor your Kentik setup for you and your organization (see Main Settings).

• Core: A comprehensive view of your day-to-day network operations (see Core):

  • Network Explorer

  • Data Explorer

  • Capacity Planning

  • Insights

  • Raw Flow Explorer

• Synthetics: Kentik's Synthetics workflows continuously monitor network performance, enabling proactive testing with public and private agents (see Synthetics). These agents generate key metrics (latency, jitter, loss) for network health and performance:

  • Synthetics Dashboard

  • Test Control Center

  • Agents

  • BGP Route Viewer

  • State of the Internet

• Network Monitoring System (NMS): Kentik NMS provides a base layer of visibility by discovering and monitoring network infrastructure (see Network Monitoring). It supports traditional use cases like device detection, interface statistics, alerts, and dashboards:

  • NMS Dashboard

  • Metrics Explorer

  • Query Assistant

  • Devices

  • Interfaces

• Edge: These modules enable Ops/Engineering to understand network utilization and costs related to external traffic (see Edge):

  • Traffic Engineering

  • Connectivity Costs

  • Traffic Costs

  • Discover Peers

• Protect: Defend your network by detecting anomalies and responding against DDoS and other threats (see Protect):

  • DDos Defense

  • Mitigations

  • Botnet & Threat Analysis

  • RPKI Analysis

  Note: The DDoS Defense and Mitigations modules work with Alerting, accessed via the Featured section.

• Service Provider: Understand service provider requirements and performance for customers and subscribers (see Service Provider):

  • CDN Analytics

  • OTT Service Tracking

  • Kentik Market Intelligence

• Cloud: Manage public and hybrid cloud networking viewing resource structure and traffic, proactively evaluating and troubleshooting performance, and anticipating and minimizing costs (see Cloud Overview):

  • Kentik Cloud

  • Kentik Kube (Note: If you’re not seeing Kentik Kube in your portal, it might not be enabled for your company’s account. Please contact your Kentik Account Team.)

  • Cloud Traffic Overviews (AWS, GCP, Azure)

  • Performance Monitor

  • Cloud Pathfinder

Note: Additional modules not grouped in the main menu sections are covered in Portal Main Menu.

Portal Page Structure

The basic structure of portal pages is covered here.

Portal Page Layout

The portal layout’s main elements are similar across most pages:

• Navbar: A black horizontal navigation bar at the top includes links to important portal functions (see Portal Navbar).

• Subnav: A horizontal bar below the navbar, in silver (Light theme) or dark gray (Dark theme). It varies depending on the page (see Portal Subnav).

• Main menu: An overlay that opens from the hamburger icon provides access to all portal modules and frequently accessed pages (see Portal Main Menu).

• Main content: The main content area displays page components like visualizations, tables, controls, and sidebars, which vary by page.

Portal Navbar

The portal's main navbar includes:

• Menu (hamburger icon): Opens the main menu, allowing navigation to portal modules/workflows (see Portal Main Menu).

• Kentik logo: Links to the designated landing page (see User-specific Defaults).

• Search: Opens the Search modal for portal text search or access to favorites and recently viewed pages (see Portal Search).

• Product Updates (megaphone icon): Pops up Product Updates with the latest portal and Kentik product changes.

• Help and Support (question mark icon): Opens the Help and Support popup (see Portal Help and Support).

• Organization settings (building icon): Drops down a menu of organization-wide settings (see Organization Settings).

• User settings (user icon): Drops down a menu of user-specific settings. Also used to log out of the Kentik portal (see User Menu).

Note: In addition to the Organization Settings and User menus, various settings can be accessed via the Settings page (see Main Settings) or the Settings submenu on the Portal Main Menu.

Product Updates

This popup opens from the Product Updates button in the Portal Navbar and contains:

• Product updates: Opens Kentik’s Product Updates page in new tab.

• Cancel: Click the X (or click outside it) to close the popup.

• Subscribe: Opens a pop-up to subscribe to product updates by email, Slack, or RSS.

• Search: Filters the article list by the entered text.

• Article list: Lists Product Article Cards representing recent articles from Kentik’s product blog.

Product Article Cards

Each article card in the Product Updates popup includes:

• Labels: Tags indicating aspects of the release (e.g., Improvement, New feature). Filter articles by these tags on the Product Updates page of the Kentik website.

• Date posted: Approximate time since posting. Hover for precise date.

• Title: The article title.

• Excerpt: The article beginning.

• Feedback emoticons: Three emoticons (happy, neutral, sad) for feedback.

• Feedback: Enter feedback and click the envelope button to submit.

Note: Click on any element except the feedback controls to open the full article in a new tab.

Portal Subnav

The subnav is a horizontal strip below the navbar, available in silver (Light theme) or dark gray (Dark theme). It includes:

• Breadcrumbs: Indicates where you are in the portal and includes links that let you navigate up to a higher level.

• Page-specific buttons: Buttons found in the subnav of many portal modules. These buttons provide access to actions specific to the page, such as refreshing data, sharing content, creating a dashboard panel, or adjusting query parameters. For more information about a specific page’s subnav buttons, refer to its KB article.

Note: Several module landing pages, such as Observation Deck and Alerting, lack a subnav.

Portal Main Menu

The portal’s main menu opens from the hamburger icon at the left of the navbar.

The main menu includes the following sections:

• Featured (top of left column): Links to popular and general areas of the portal (see Featured Overview):

  • Alerting

  • Journeys

  • Kentik Map

  • Library

  • My Kentik Portal

  • Observation Deck

• Portal sections (center three columns): Links in the main menu that correspond to the modules in each portal section, such as Core and Synthetics. See Portal Sections for a list of the modules in each section.

  Note: The portal sections list is covered by a popup submenu when you hover on Top Talkers or Settings.

• 

  Top Talkers (bottom of left column): A link with two functions:

  • On hover: Displays the Top Talkers submenu in the main menu, providing direct access to the portal's Core Aggregate Pages.

  • Close by moving off it or clicking the X at the upper right.

  • When clicked: Takes you to Network Explorer.

• Settings (bottom of left column): A link with two functions:

  • On hover: Displays the Settings submenu in the main menu, allowing you to tailor Kentik to your organization’s needs.

  • To close, move off it or click the X at the upper right.

  • When clicked: Takes you to the portal's Settings page (see Main Settings), from which you can access the same modules.

• Discover (top of right column): Links to locations of interest (see Discover Menu).

• Recently Viewed (bottom of right column): Links to recently visited portal pages.

Discover Menu

Links in the Discover menu on the right of the main menu lead to additional pages of interest, including some external to the portal:

• Knowledge Base: Opens the Knowledge Base (KB) in a new tab.

• Product Blog: Opens Product Updates in a new tab, displaying the latest features and improvements.

• Integrations: Links to pages that set up Kentik with external systems (see Integrations). They’re available in different categories, such as DDoS Mitigation Platforms, SSO Platforms, Notification Channels, Operations, and Network Platforms.

• Demo Environment: Goes to a standalone Kentik environment for hands-on tutorials, allowing users to experience our product’s core features.

• API Tester: Opens a list of Kentik's v6 APIs (see About the V6 APIs) in a new tab, allowing you to test endpoints with data from your Kentik account.

Portal Help and Support

The Help and Support popup opens from the question mark icon in the Portal Navbar. It has two main panes with information and support:

• Check our Knowledge Base: Links to the most helpful KB article on using or understanding the settings and features at your current location (URL).

• Submit a Support Request: Fill out a form to report bugs, feature requests, suggestions, or observations. Track your requests in our support portal at https://support.kentik.com (opens in a new tab).

To submit a request from the popup:

1. In the Summary field, briefly state the reason for your support request.

2. Choose the type of support request (question, bug report, training) from the Type drop-down.

3. Provide more details in the Additional Details field, especially if it's a bug, and include steps to reproduce it.

4. Click Submit.

Portal Search

The following sections cover the portal's search features.

Portal Search UI

The portal’s search functionality is a popup that opens from the Search field in the main navbar or via Search Keyboard Shortcuts. Accessible from any portal page, the popup includes:

• Search: A field at the top where you enter text to search. The search is incremental, so you don’t need to press return after entering the term.

• Try searching for (question mark icon): A list that pops up when you hover on the icon. It shows searchable entities and properties for both network entities (e.g., ASNs, IP addresses, interfaces) and Kentik-specific constructs (e.g., cost groups, dashboards).

  Note: The same list is displayed in the Search Results Tab when no text is entered in the Search field.

• Tabs: The main display area of the popup with three tabs (see Portal Search Tabs).

Portal Search Tabs

The lozenge-like buttons at the top of the Search popup switch between three tabs:

• Favorites: A list of portal views you’ve favorited (see Favorites Tab), with the count in parentheses.

• Recents: A list of recently viewed dashboards and saved views (see Recents Tab), with the count in parentheses.

• Search Results: A list of search results for the entered terms (see Search Results Tab).

The Search Results tab displays as soon as you begin entering text in the Search field. If you haven't yet entered any text, the tab displayed when you first open the Search popup depends on whether you've favorited or recently visited any portal locations:

• If you've designated any favorites in the portal, the Favorites tab will display.

• If you don't have any favorites, your Recents tab will display.

• If you haven't visited any pages recently, the Search Results tab will be visible.

Favorites Tab

The Favorites tab on the Search popup lets you bookmark frequently visited portal locations.

Favorites Tab UI

The Favorites tab lists all portal locations designated as a favorite. It’s divided into Dashboards, Saved Views, and Screens & Workflows. Click a bookmark to navigate to that location.

Manage Favorites

A solid star icon indicates a favorite location (e.g., page). Otherwise, the star is outlined. Click the icon to toggle the designation.

The icon appears to the left of the page name in the following portal locations:

• Page title bar

• Library List (dashboards and saved views only)

• Saved Views drawer in Data Explorer (saved views only)

• Search popup Favorites Tab and Recents Tab

  Note: Changes to favorites in the Search popup are not reflected until the next time it's opened.

Recents Tab

The Recents tab lists recently visited dashboards and saved views in reverse chronological order. Click a list item to go directly to that page.

Each table row includes:

• Favorite: A star icon indicating if the view is a favorite (solid) or not (outlined). Click to toggle.

• Name: The view name.

• Description: The description text (if any) provided when the view was created or edited.

• Last accessed: How recently the view was accessed (minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months).

Search Results Tab

When the Search field is empty, the Search Results tab displays the Try searching for list (see Portal Search UI).

As you type in the Search field, the search engine starts looking for matches and the Try searching for list is replaced with:

• Results List: A table at the left listing results grouped by category.

• Type List: A list at the top right displaying categories and their respective result counts.

• See KB results: Opens the KB in a new tab with results from the portal search term.

Results List

The first row of the Results list links to Journeys, where you can start a new journey with the entered search terms. The remaining results are grouped by portal view (e.g., Interfaces, Synthetic Tests, Dashboards).

If more than five results return for a type, the + more button appears at the bottom right, showing the remaining results. Click it to expand the group.

Note: Click the corresponding element in the Type List to toggle the display of any group in the Results list.

Type List

When you start typing in the Search field, the Type list at the right of the Search Results tab shows a row for each type in the returned results. Clicking on a row shows/hides the corresponding group of results in the Results list.

Each row includes:

• Type: The name of the type (e.g., Dashboards, Interfaces).

• Count: A lozenge indicating the number of results in the corresponding group.

  Note: If a group’s type is hidden in the Results list, its lozenge will be gray; otherwise it’s blue.

Two controls below the Type list affect the Results list:

• All: Shows all groups.

• None: Hides all groups.

Search Keyboard Shortcuts

The Search popup includes keyboard shortcuts for the commands in the table below.

Note: For shortcuts applicable across the portal, see Portal Keyboard Shortcuts.

Portal Keyboard Shortcuts

The Kentik portal includes keyboard shortcuts (global hotkeys) for the commands in the table below.