Basic Nectus Monitoring

How to Create a Maintenance Events in Nectus

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How to Create a Maintenance Events in Nectus

You can create maintenance events in Nectus to allow everybody to see that specific objects (Interface, Device or Site) have an active or scheduled maintenance.

During active maintenance events corresponding objects in Nectus are displayed with a blue status icon.

This article shows how to create a maintenance event for a Device.

Similar process can be used for creation of Interface or Site level maintenance events.

Step 1: Login to the Nectus Portal, Right click on the specific device and select the Properties option.

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Step 2: Go to the Maintenance Events Tab and Click on Add button to create a new Maintenance Event

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Step 3: Provide the suitable description and scheduling information.

Select the appropriate checkbox to disable monitoring or alerting during the activity time.

 

 

Step 4: We can also use the status, time range, objects type dropdown to filter the maintenance events to manage it.

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Step 5. To See Complete list of all Maintenance events, go to Monitoring -> Global Monitoring Settings -> Maintenance Events.

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How to Combine Multiple Interface Utilization Graphs Into One

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Step 1: Login to the Nectus GUI, and go to the specific device, identify the interfaces which have to be graphed in a combined view.

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Step 2: Select the multiple interfaces, Right-Click on the Selected Interfaces and go to Graphs -> Interface Utilization Graph.

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Step 3: Here is the default view, where all utilization graphs are stacked vertically.

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Step 4: Use superimpose option (Superimpose, Superimpose with Summary) which merges the selected multiple interface utilization graphs into a single graph.

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How to Override Group Based Monitoring Settings for Specific Devices

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How to Override Group Based Monitoring Settings for Specific Devices

By default, all the monitoring settings for each device are defined in the Monitoring Profile that is assigned to

Monitoring Group where this specific device is a member of.

Starting from 1.67.1 release Nectus adds ability to override group-based monitoring settings for each device.

Step1: Login to the Nectus Portal and go to the specific device on which you need to perform the monitoring settings override.

Right click on the device and select Properties.

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Step 2: Select Metrics Tab in the properties modal and apply all the required overrides to the required metrics.

Check button “Local Override” must be selected for all the metrics that must have priority (override) over Group based monitoring settings.

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Creating New Interface Monitoring Groups and Profiles

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Step 1: Login to the Nectus Portal and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> SNMP Interfaces Monitoring Settings.

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Step 2: Monitoring Profile Creation – Go to the SNMP Interface Monitoring Profile Tab by clicking the Add Profile button.

Name the profile, enable the relevant options, and click the OK button.

Now, we can see that the newly created profile is shown in the table.

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Step 3: Monitoring Group Creation – Next, let’s go to the SNMP Interface Monitoring Groups tab and create a new interface monitoring group by clicking Add Group.

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Step 4: Assigning Interfaces to Monitoring Group – Click on the interface group name to add the appropriate device interfaces information to the group.

We can also filter the interfaces based on operational status, admin status, site and device types and lastly click on Save button.

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Step 5: Assigning Monitoring Profile to Monitoring Group – Enable the monitoring and select the previously created monitoring profile from the dropdown.

Step 6: Defining Alert Recipients for Monitoring Group – Now, let’s configure recipients for alerting by clicking the email button.

It allows us to add SMS and email recipients to a list. Further, we can also select the appropriate alert templates to send alert/sms.

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Done.

 

Creating New Device Monitoring Groups and Profiles

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Network device monitoring in Nectus  is controlled by device monitoring groups and associated monitoring profiles.

There are two default monitoring groups: “Default Monitoring Group” and “No Monitoring Group”

By default all devices are automatically assigned to Default Monitoring Group where all basic monitoring metric are enabled.

“No Monitoring Group” is used as a parking place for devices that do not required monitoring.

In some cases additional  monitoring groups may be required and this article explains the steps required to create  additional monitoring groups.

 

Step 1: Login to the Nectus Portal and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> SNMP Devices Monitoring Settings.

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Step 2: Monitoring Profile Creation – Go to the SNMP Device Monitoring Profile by clicking the Add Profile button. Name the profile, enable the relevant options, and click the OK button.

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Now, we can see that the newly created profile is shown in the table.

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Step 3: Monitoring Group Creation – Next, let’s go to the SNMP Device Monitoring Groups tab and create a new device monitoring group.

Step 4: Assigning Devices to Monitoring Group – Click on the device group name to add the appropriate device information to the group and lastly click on Save and Ok buttons.

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Step 5: Assigning Monitoring Profile to Monitoring Group – Enable the monitoring and select the previously created monitoring profile from the dropdown.

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Step 6: Defining Alert Recipients for Monitoring Group – Now, let’s configure recipients for alerting by clicking the email button. It allows us to add SMS and email recipients to a list.

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Done.

 

Automating Selection of Interfaces Enabled for Monitoring

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Automating Selection of Interfaces Enabled for Monitoring

By default, Nectus does not monitor any Interfaces and you must select which interfaces you want to be monitored.

You can select Interfaces manually by adding it to one of the Interface monitoring groups or you can build auto-population rules

that will automatically select Interfaces based on predefined rules. Rules will be executed once a day (at 2:00AM)

Step 1: Login to the Nectus portal and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> SNMP Interfaces Monitoring Settings option.

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Step 2: Go to the SNMP Interfaces Monitoring Groups tab and click on the Auto Population Rules under the Default Monitoring Group.

Step 3: Click on the Rule to add a new auto-population rule. Once a day, interfaces that conform to the defined rules

will be added to the corresponding monitoring group.

You can add individual rules or you can create group of rules with AND/OR logic.

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Controlling Nectus Database Size Growth with Data Retention Rules

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Controlling Nectus Database Size with Data Retention Rules

 

Step 1: Login to Nectus portal and go to Monitoring 🡪 Global Monitoring Settings option.

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Step 2: Go to the “Data Retention” tab in the Monitoring Settings modal. It shows retention settings in days for each monitoring metric.

Further, it also shows the current database size and the data daily growth rate.

These two options give you a good idea of how to plan your retention period and storage requirements.

 

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Step 3: Provide the retention period in days with maximum of 3650 days (10 years) and minimum of 1 day.

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Step 4: We also have two key options such as Refresh and Cleanup.

Refresh – Will fetch updated size information from the server

Cleanup – Starts removal of monitoring data from the Nectus database according to retention settings.

Note: Normally Cleanup happens automatically every day at 2:00AM.

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How to Monitor Number of Active TCP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

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How to Monitor Number of Active TCP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

Quick Start

Step 1: Login to Nectus and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> Custom SNMP Trackers.

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Step 2: Click on the Create button to create a new SNMP Custom Tracker that will be collecting number of active TCP sessions every 5min.

Palo Alto SNMP OID that returns number of active TCP sessions: 1.3.6.1.4.1.25461.2.1.2.3.4.0

Step 3: Enable the tracker, provide the tracker name, SNMP OID, unit name and data type.

Alerting option can be enable with predefined threshold value.

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Step 4: If not created in advance, create the SNMP Device View by clicking the + (plus) button.

Provide the view name and select the Palo Alto Firewalls from available device list for monitoring.

 

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Click “Ok” to finish tracker creation.

Step 5: For reporting, Go to the Reports -> “Top” reports -> Top Custom SNMP Trackers

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Step 6: Select the appropriate report and tracker name to get the max. and min. values.

Click on the Graph button to get the tracker trend in visual form.

 

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Done.

 

How to Monitor Number of Active UDP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

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How to Monitor Number of Active UDP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

Quick Start

Step 1: Login to Nectus and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> Custom SNMP Trackers.

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Step 2: Click on the Create button to create a new SNMP Custom Tracker that will be collecting number of active UDP sessions every 5min.

Palo Alto SNMP OID that returns number of active UDP sessions: 1.3.6.1.4.1.25461.2.1.2.3.5.0

Step 3: Enable the tracker, provide the tracker name, SNMP OID, unit name and data type.

Alerting option can be enable with predefined threshold value.

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Step 4: If not created in advance, create the SNMP Device View by clicking the + (plus) button.

Provide the view name and select the Palo Alto Firewalls from available device list for monitoring.

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Click “Ok” to finish tracker creation.

Step 5: For reporting, Go to the Reports -> “Top” reports -> Top Custom SNMP Trackers

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Step 6: Select the appropriate report and tracker name to get the max. and min. values.

Click on the Graph button to get the tracker trend in visual form.

 

 

 

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Done.

 

How to Monitor Number of Active ICMP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

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How to Monitor Number of Active ICMP Sessions on PaloAlto Firewalls

Quick Start

Step 1: Login to Nectus and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> Custom SNMP Trackers.

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Step 2: Click on the Create button to create a new SNMP Custom Tracker that will be collecting number of active ICMP sessions every 5min.

Palo Alto SNMP OID that returns number of active ICMP sessions: 1.3.6.1.4.1.25461.2.1.2.3.6.0

Step 3: Enable the tracker, provide the tracker name, SNMP OID, unit name and data type.

Alerting option can be enable with predefined threshold value.

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Step 4: If not created in advance, create the SNMP Device View by clicking the + (plus) button. Provide the view name and select the Palo Alto Firewalls from available device list for monitoring.

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Click “Ok” to finish tracker creation.

Step 5: For reporting, Go to the Reports -> “Top” reports -> Top Custom SNMP Trackers

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Step 6: Select the appropriate report and tracker name to get the max. and min. values. Click on the Graph button to get the tracker trend in visual form.

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Done.

 

How to Monitor Number of Palo Alto VPN (Global Protect) Users

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How to Monitor Number of Palo Alto VPN (Global Protect) Users

 

Step 1: Login to Nectus and go to Monitoring -> Network Monitoring Settings -> Custom SNMP Trackers.

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Step 2: Click on the Create button to create a new SNMP Custom Tracker that will be collecting number of connected VPN users every 5min.

Palo Alto SNMP OID that returns number of connected users: 1.3.6.1.4.1.25461.2.1.2.5.1.3.0

Step 3: Enable the tracker, provide the tracker name, SNMP OID, unit name and data type.

Alerting option can be enabled with predefined threshold values.

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Step 4: If not created in advance, create the SNMP Device View by clicking the + (plus) button.

Provide the view name and select the Palo Alto Firewalls from available device list for monitoring.

 

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Click “Ok” to finish tracker creation.

 

Step 5: For reporting, Go to the Reports -> “Top” reports -> Top Custom SNMP Trackers

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Step 6: Select the appropriate report and tracker name to get the max. and min. values.

Click on the Graph button to get the tracker trend in visual form.

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Done.

 

How to Add and Configure IP Monitors

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Step 1: Login to Nectus portal. Then, click on IP Monitors.

Step 2: Right Click on IP Monitors and select Add Group to create a new monitoring group.

Step 3: Provide a unique name to the group and check the “Enable monitoring” option.

If monitoring requires custom ICMP monitoring timers then select optional Custom ICMP Monitoring Profile.

Choose the appropriate Polling Agent (Default is Main Polling Agent) and provide optional physical address.

Click on Ok to create a new IP monitor group.

Step 4: Now, the new group gets added under IP Monitors. The square icon indicates the status and since no device is added in the group, it’s shown in grey color.

Step 5: Right click on the IP Monitor Group to add a new IP Monitor into the group.

Step 6: Under the General Info Tab, provide a valid IP, name and optional physical address.

Then, click on Ok button to Add IP Monitor.

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Step 7: To test the reachabilty of IP Monitor, we can use Ping this IPv4 Monitor option. It performs a live ICMP ping test to the IP Monitor.

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Step 8: It also provides the options to repeat the test and continue ping tests.

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Step 9: To get the current device monitoring information, go to View IPv4 Monitor Info.

Step 10: The General Info provides the basic details about the device.

Alerts tab contains all the monitoring alerts. All alerts can be exported in *.csv format for further drill down. Click on eye icon in each row to get more information about the alert.

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Step 11: Right click on the device and Graphs to get a plot based on UP/DOWN state, latencies etc.

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Step 12: We can share the polled data from Nectus in several ways.

Step 13: We can share the access to graph using Generate Direct Access URL.

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Step 14: Further, we can also export all data points in a *.csv form using Export All option.

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Step 15: We can select multiple devices using CTRL + Left Click. Right click on any one to get the available options.

Step 16: Select the Graphs option to obtain the consolidated view of the plots for the selected devices.

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Step 17: To edit the added devices, right click on the device and choose properties.

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Step 18: Bulk import through a *.csv file can be performed and sample file can be downloaded from Import from CSV modal for quick reference.

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Step 19: Post the data import completion, skim through the device information, and select them to save into the database for the monitoring.

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Step 20: Additionally, we can select Delete IPv4 Monitor to delete the devices from monitoring.

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Congrats! We have successfully explored the lifecycle management of devices for ICMP monitoring using IP Monitor.

 

Configuring SNMP OID for Memory utilization Monitoring

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Configuring SNMP OID for Memory Utilization Monitoring

  1. In this article we look at how to configure the SNMP OID for memory utilization monitoring of specific device. If you do not know the OID for a device, contact the device manufacturer and request the OID for the function required.

Procedure

Step 1. Right-click on the device that required RAM utilization monitoring and select View Device Info.

Step 2. The View Device Info window opens. Click on SNMP OID.

Step 3. The SNMP OID window opens. Examine the entries for “platform specific oid memory utilization.” In this case two OID entries have been made. Depending on the manufacturer, one or two entries will be entered.

Step 4. If there are no entries, then SNMP OID need to be entered to enable the memory utilization monitoring.

Step 5. To enter platform specific OID for memory utilization, click on the text.

Step 6. The SNMP OID (memory utilization) window appears.

The manufacturer will tell you how the device reports memory utilization. If the device reports Memory Utilization Percent directly, the OID is entered in that box and provisioning is done. If the device reports separate values for total, free or used, then the OID information for each count need to be entered. Nectus will perform the calculation to arrive at Memory Utilization.

For example, when the device reports Memory Utilization Percent directly, the OID is entered in the first box and provisioning is complete.

In this case, the device reports Memory Used and Memory Free, so the OID for Memory Used is entered in the Memory Used space and the OID for Memory Free is entered in the Memory Free space. Nectus will compute utilization as Memory Used / (Memory Used + Memory Free) * 100.

In this case, the device reports Memory Free and Memory Total, so the OID for Memory Free is entered in the Memory Free space, and the OID for Memory Total is entered in the Memory Total space. Nectus will compute utilization as Memory Free / Memory Total * 100.

Step 7. Click on the OK button. Nectus will provision the OID information, unless an error is discovered.

In this case Nectus is reporting that Used and Free Memory OIDs are required.

We re-enter the OID information as Memory Used and Memory Free, and click OK.

Step 8. The OID assignments are accepted and displayed on the View Device window.

Testing

  1. Testing: Testing the assignments can be done by examining the utilization display or retrieving the OID contents.

Step 1. Click View Device General to see the results of configuration.

RAM percent utilization is working.

Step 2. Testing: Click on the dial to see a graph of the measurement over time.

Step 3. Testing: To retrieve current value of OID select SNMP OID tab and click on “TEST” for OID of interest.

Step 4. Change SNMP Walk to GET.

Step 5. Click Start.

Step 6. Current value of the OID will be displayed.

How to Manually Generate a Process Dump using Process Explorer

Problem

There may be times where a process dump file (or files) are required to troubleshoot a specific problem. The steps in this document walk through the process of generating a dump file using Process Explorer for IBM Support analysis. While the example used covers the tm1sd.exe process, the same steps can be followed for any process on the operating system. NOTE: You may follow a very similar approach using only Windows Task Manager, however Windows Task Manager will not allow you to choose a dump file location. This step is important if your application consumes a lot of memory and you do not have enough disk space on your Windows drive (C:).

Resolving The Problem

  1. Download Process Explorer
  2. Locate your Process Explorer executable, procexp64.exe.
  3. Right-click the process and select run as an Administrator.
  4. When Process Explorer has opened, look for the process/executable name in the Process column.
    • If more than one process with the same process/executable name exists, hover over the executable and review the Services parameter and confirm that the details match what you are expecting.
  5. Once the correct process has been found, right-click the process and select Create Dump > Create Full Dump
  6. When prompted, specify the directory where you wish to write the dump file to.
    • Ensure that the disk you are writing to has enough space to write the file.
    • The file will be close to the size of the memory used by the process.
  7. After you click the Save button, it can take a few minutes for the file to finish writing to disk.
    • During this time the process will freeze until the dump has been written.
  8. The resulting dump file should be compressed and provided to IBM Support for review.

How to Enable Meraki API Integration in Nectus

How to Enable Meraki Integration in Nectus

  1. Obtain the Meraki API key.

Follow the procedure in the Meraki document to generate the API key. The document may be found at https://documentation.meraki.com. Keep this key secure.

The key is an alphanumeric string of 40 characters.

Sample API key: dfg5fffc2def3g34345mn7888u8wz9565df45

  1. Enable Meraki integration in Nectus.

Step 1. In the Main Menu, go to Settings → General Settings → Third Party Integration -> Meraki Integration.

 

Step 2. The Meraki Integration window opens.

Step 3. Check Enable Meraki API Integration box. Copy and paste API key into window. Click Test.

Step 4. When test is successful, click OK.

 

Step 5. On left side of main window, click Meraki, right click on All Meraki Devices, select Reload Data From Meraki.

 

The Reload Data from Meraki window opens, letting you know that the reload is in progress. Close this window.

Step 7. After a few minutes, the list of Meraki devices will appear.

Device View Auto Population Rules

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Device View Auto Population Rules

Device View is the logical grouping of the devices that can be used in different places within the Nectus application. In the previous versions of Nectus, the user would manually add devices into device views which may become a significant management overhead.

In Nectus version 1.55 we introduced an ability to automatically populate device views based on specific conditions such as device names, types, etc.

User can define a set of conditions which has to be true for Nectus to automatically add devices to device views.

This article will guide you through the process of defining the auto population rules for device views.

To access your SNMP Device Views go to Inventory Views SNMP Device View

 

 

To add a new Device View, click Create in the upper right hand corner of the SNMP Devices Views page.

 

Give a name to your new Device View.

 

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Press Save button to finish creation of Device view.

 

Open again newly created device view and in the upper right-hand corner, select Edit Rules.

This will open the Devices View Auto Population Rules page.

 

Select the plus sign to add a new Auto Population Rule.

 

Add all the required Auto-population rules and press Ok button to Save.

If multiple rules are defined all the rules must be TRUE for device to be automatically added. (Logical AND).

Your rules will be processed daily at 3:00 PM.

If you would like to apply your rules immediately, press the Apply Rules button.

 

Monitoring BGP Sessions with Nectus

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Monitoring BGP Sessions with Nectus

Nectus 1.2.53 introduces ability to automatically discover and monitor iBGP and eBGP sessions across all router types and manufacturers.

Nectus scheduled network discovery automatically finds all the BGP sessions via SNMP polls and adds it to Nectus database where user can group them by type and enable active monitoring and alerting.

BGP Session Discovery

As part of regular scheduled network discovery Nectus detects all existing BGP Sessions and adds it to one of the existing BGP group which has “Default” flag set to ON.

You can see all the BGP sessions that were discovered in Inventory -> BGP Sessions or in left side panel called “BGP Sessions

 

If you right-click on BGP Session and select “Properties

 

.. you can assign a human friendly name or change a group membership for any of the BGP sessions.

 

You can create multiple BGP session groups and assign discovered BGP sessions to different groups according to its type or functional purpose.

To create a new Group, right-click on “BGP Sessions” line and select “Add New Group” on context menu.

 

Configure New Group name, set “Enable monitoring” to ON if you want all BGP Sessions in this group to be monitored for UP/DOWN Status.

 

If you set “Default” value to ON, this group will become a group where all newly discovered BGP sessions be added automatically. Only one group can have “Default” value set to ON

You can also assign BGP Session to a Group by right-clicking on BGP session and selecting “Move BGP Session to..” option

 

 

By clicking “View Session Info” on BGP Session context menu you can view detailed information about BGP Session

 

 

After you finished creating BGP session groups, assigning BGP sessions to corresponding groups and enabling BGP session groups for Monitoring the final step is to enable BGP Sessions monitoring in corresponding SNMP Device Monitoring Profiles that are applied to the routers that terminate all the BGP sessions.

Find required SNMP Monitoring Profile and enable “BGP Session Status” Monitoring Option

Now are you all set to start monitoring your BGP sessions line a pro.

 

UPS Health Status Monitoring with Nectus

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UPS Status Monitoring with Nectus

Health monitoring of UPS units is one of the most critical tasks of network infrastructure monitoring.

If UPS fails during power outage it results in immediate network downtime resulting in loss of revenue and degrading user experience.

Most of the modern UPS Units perform daily self-tests and results of those self-tests are available via SNMP protocol.

Our goal is to collect those self-test results on regular basis and generate an alert or incident when self-test indicates a UPS failure.

Step 1. Determine which SNMP OID to use

Very first step before you can start monitoring UPS health status is to determine which SNMP OID contains self-test information for your UPS units.

You can open a support case with your UPS vendor and request SNNP OID string for self-test information.

For example, SNMP OID for self-test information from UPS manufactured by APC is .1.3.6.1.4.1.318.1.1.1.7.2.3.0

This OID returns following values:

1 = Ok

2 = Failed

3 = Invalid Test

4 = Test In Progress

 

Step 2. Create Device View that contain all UPS units

Next step is to create a Device View that contain all UPS units that we want to monitor.

To create a Device View go to Inventory -> Views -> SNMP Device Views.

 

Create a new Device Vice called “UPS Units”

 

 

Step 3. Create Custom SNMP Tracker for UPS Self-Test Info

Now we are ready to create a custom SNMP tracker that will be polling our UPS units every 5 min for self-test information.

In Nectus GUI go to Monitoring → SNMP Monitoring Settings → Custom SNMP Trackers

 

Press “Create” button to bring up Custom SNMP Tracker creation interface.

Complete tracker General information tab with correct SNMP OID and select Device View that contains all UPS units that we want to monitor.

 

Select Email and SMS list for Alert Recipients.

In “Alerts” Tab we need to specify which status values will be considered Normal and which values should trigger Alerts.

You can specify multiple values separated by comma.

 

Define an Alert Severity level for Alarm Values as Informational, Warning or Critical.

Define number of consecutive readings for which UPS self-test status must report an Alarm condition before formal Alert is created.

Nectus performs one SNMP poll per 5 min.

If you define value for consecutive readings as 3 it should result in Alert created after 15 minutes of True Alarm conditions.

Press “Save” to complete Custom SNMP tracker creation for UPS Status Monitoring

This completes creation of custom tracker that will be monitoring UPS self-test information on all APC UPS units in your network.

 

Suppression of Frequent Identical Alerts In Nectus

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Suppression of Frequent Identical Alerts In Nectus

Often when a network device or interface changes its state between Up and Down multiple times in a short time interval, numerous identical alerts will be sent to all the configured alert recipients.

Nectus offers the ability to suppress frequent identical alerts to reduce informational noise level by specifying a suppression timer for up to three hours.

Nectus calculates a CRC hash value from each of the email alert bodies and if hash values of two alerts are matching they are considered to be identical and can be suppressed.

Nectus excludes event timer values and specific metric values from hash calculation logic. You can configure the suppression timer from 0 to 180 minutes where 0 means no suppression.

To configure the suppression timer, go to    Monitoring -> Global Monitoring Settings

 

 

Under Monitoring Settings, select the Alerts tab.

To enable suppression specify a time interval from 1 to 180 minutes.

At the end of the time interval, alert logic will resume as normal.

Setting timer to 0 will disable the suppression.

 

 

Adjusting min. detectable ICMP outage duration in Nectus

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Adjusting Min. detectable ICMP outage duration in Nectus

When Nectus is configured to monitor UP/DOWN Status for network devices with ICMP it sends Echo packets at preset interval called Inter-Packet Delay.

By default, this Interval is set to 10 seconds.

Network Device is considered down if Echo-Reply is not received for “N” consecutive Echo packets.

By default “N” is set to 10.

So, by combining Inter-Packet Delay and “N” Value we can see that minimum duration of the outage that can be detected by Nectus with default settings is 100 seconds.

Sometimes when network a prone to fast transient outages or burstable traffic patterns that can impact ICMP it may be beneficial to increase minimum detectable ICMP outage duration to higher value. This can helps to eliminate alerts about short lived outages and only alert on outages that have more lasting impact.

To adjust Inter-Packet Delay or “N” Value go to “Monitoring -> Global Monitoring Settings

 

And adjust values on “ICMP Monitoring” Tab according to your business needs.