Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture to uniquely identify network application flows. Upon detecting a network application flow, data is obtained from the flow and is used to prepare a unique data identifier, referred to as a global flow ID. Multiple stations monitoring network flow at different points in the network can, with the present invention, compute the same global flow ID for local detections of the same network application flow. The monitoring stations can report flow observations and metrics to a centralized analysis resource without retransmitting the flow data.