Network traffic analysis is performed by deploying, across a network having a plurality of network nodes, at least one data collection agent, on at least two of the plurality of network nodes. Each data collection agent may monitor at each network node, a plurality of network connections instantiated during a monitoring time period. Data resulting from the monitoring is acquired from the data collection agents and an ontological description of the network is automatically created from the acquired data. The ontological description is dynamically updated and network traffic analysis is performed using the dynamically updating ontological description.