Archive of posts with category 'NMS'
Juniper routing instances are very useful when you need separate routing tables on the one device, for example to separate customers. Junos lets you configure SNMP polling of routing instances,...
Too many IXPs (and networkers in general) are using horrible outdated methods of graphing data. These are an ugly eyesore, and should be updated to something from this century. Big...
Two years ago I wrote about how to use InfluxDB & Grafana for better visualization of network statistics. I still loathe MRTG graphs, but configuring InfluxSNMP was a bit of...
Last week Savvius announced upgraded versions of its Insight network visibility appliances. These have the usual performance and capacity increases you’d expect, and fill a nice gap in the market....
SNMP was not designed with VRFs in mind. Querying the routing table via SNMP did not take into account the idea of having multiple routing tables. But clearly it’s something...
netmiko is a “Multi-vendor library to simplify Paramiko SSH connections to network devices,” written by Kirk Byers. It doesn’t solve all of your pain with dealing with CLI-only network devices,...
Brocade VDX switches have REST and NETCONF interfaces. The REST API uses the built-in HTTP server. By default, this uses plain-text HTTP. As of NOS 6.0, you can (and should!)...
Recently I wanted to look at the structure of sFlow packets. Of course I can read the specs, but it’s often easier to look at some real packets. So I set...
Brocade tightened up some SNMP settings with NOS 6.0.x. This improves security, but it also means that you will need to modify your configuration if you upgrade. If you don’t,...
I loathe MRTG graphs. They were cool in 2000, but now they’re showing their age. We have much better visualisation tools available, and we don’t need to be so aggressive...
Brocade Network Advisor (BNA) has a REST API for accessing Fibre Channel-related data. The documentation includes a sample Python script showing how to connect to the API to retrieve Fabric info....
Fluke Networks recently released TruView Live, a subscription-based service for monitoring internal & external applications. Tests can run from Fluke-managed cloud locations, your own systems, or from dedicated hardware appliances. I’ve been...
Here’s a couple of quick hacks for working with Brocade Network Advisor. It’s unsupported, but you can run BNA on Ubuntu. You can also suppress the client-side JRE version mismatch...
NetBeez presented at Network Field Day 9, where they showed us their solution for distributed network performance monitoring. They gave the delegates a NetBeez agent to take home and test....
Monitoring needs to move on from traditional fault and performance polling. It should include identifying common misconfigurations and known faults. We’re all using the same technologies, so we’ve all got the...
I’m reviewing the presenters for Network Field Day 9, in particular looking at those I’m not familiar with. NetBeez is one of those making their first Tech Field Day appearance....
HP has finally announced a migration path for Operations Manager to OMi. It’s about time too. This looks like a good path. If you want to stick with HP Software for managing...
Recently I’ve been thinking about Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and how it’s not perfect, but there may be hope for the future.
In Episode 167 of The Cloudcast - “Bringing Advanced Analytics to DevOps”, Dave Hayes brings up an interesting point about Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR). At about 8:30 in, he...
Automated Root Cause Analysis promises a lot. High-end network monitoring systems promise that they can automatically isolate network problems, and only tell you about the thing that needs fixing. This sounds...
ThousandEyes is a network monitoring company that provides application performance visibility across the Internet. They don’t just show how an application is performing, but can identify where across the Internet issues...
A year ago I asked “Has HP Abandoned Operations Manager?” There had been no significant development for a long time, and the signs were that HP was moving away from...
Packetpushers show 198 was a great episode about Network Automation. At one point, Greg asks:
Network monitoring is often a reactive process. Engineers see an alarm, and take action. Alarms mean someone broke something, and it needs attention. Deal with the alarms, and all will...
Counter data types are commonly used in SNMP monitoring. They are extremely useful, but there’s a couple of caveats around how to use them. Here’s a couple of issues I’ve...
Packet Pushers normally focuses on networking, but episode 192 covered “Logging Design and Best Practices.” I often think about logging in the context of network management, so it was good...
I use a Juniper SRX 110 at home, and my ISP is enlightened enough to offer IPv6 by default to all customers. My devices are dual-stack, and I know that a...
Earlier this year I came across Scalyr, a newer player in the cloud-based log management scene. They’re taking a slightly different approach to products like Loggly and Splunk. I’ve been...
A quick reminder - do not use the symbol ‘@’ in SNMPv1/2 community strings. I came across this again this week - it causes issues with monitoring some equipment, and...
Previously I’ve looked at the overall ScienceLogic architecture, and HA options for the Collectors and UI. This post looks at DR and HA options for the core Database layer - the...
[UPDATE 26/6/14] This code is now available as a Release Candidate.
Recently I’ve been converting a network from an agent-based monitoring system to an agentless system. One challenge was handling custom application logfiles. Most agent-based monitoring systems make it very easy...
Some Cisco routers I work with use multiple VRFs. A specific VRF is used for management, and the loopback interface is in that VRF. All SNMP + SSH access is...
Recently I’ve been thinking about Cisco Prime Infrastructure, and Cisco’s continued resistance to supporting non-Cisco equipment. I’ve been wondering if this is good for Cisco, and if they should face...
This is a quick overview of Splunk - what it is, how it works, what makes it good, and how you might use it. I like Splunk, and I think...
What is Log Management, and why should I care? Can’t I just grep through logs when I need to? Isn’t syslog on its own enough? This post will give an overview of...
This article is Part 7 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part...
This article is Part 6 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part...
This article is Part 5 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part...
This article is Part 4 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part...
This article is Part 3 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part...
This article is Part 2 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - NMS Primer 1: What is an NMS? Part 2 - This Article Part 3 - NMS Primer 3:...
This article is Part 1 in a 7-Part Series. Part 1 - This Article Part 2 - NMS Primer 2: How Do They Work? Part 3 - NMS Primer 3:...
I’ve been reading more about OpenFlow recently, and something that was pointed out to me was that OpenFlow offers features that could give us deeper insights into our traffic flows,...
How much monitoring should I do for services that I’ve outsourced? This question comes up frequently with my clients. They’ve paid someone else to manage a service for them, and...
The default logging style for Cisco IOS-based devices is to insert the system uptime in the log entry. This makes it basically useless. Here’s some typical log output:
Timezones can be complicated things - every country has its own set of rules around how to decide what time it currently is - and those rules change, frequently. Modern...
Auto-discovery can help you populate your NMS, and keep it up to date. HP IMC supports several methods of adding devices - either by manually adding them, or getting IMC...
The Windows WMI repository can become corrupted on Windows 2008 R2 servers being used with XenApp. WMI corruption can cause problems for monitoring systems, and potentially some applications. Here's how...
HP Operations Manager has been around a long time in the Enterprise server management space. I first started working with it around 2001, and I’ve always had a soft spot...
This is a companion post to my review of the technical differences between NNMi and IMC. That one tried to stay focused on technical matters, but this post is more opinion-based....
It can be hard to understand the differences between HP's NNMi and IMC. Both offer a great range of network management capabilities. Here I outline the technical similarities and differences...
Recently I upgraded an HP SIM system from 7.1 to 7.2 on Windows 2008 R2. After the upgrade, SNMP discovery and data collection failed for all systems - servers, switches,...
Many network faults I see are quite preventable, or could have been fixed far sooner, if basic network ‘hygiene’ had been maintained. Major faults are often the result of multiple...
I’ve posted a review of ScienceLogic EM7 up at Packet Pushers: Review: ScienceLogic - One Tool to Rule Them All.
HP Software recently released 6 free network utilities and tools. Free stuff is good right? We all like free. But HP doesn’t do things out of the goodness of its...
