Poller setup question

Hi Team,

Little background story:
I am currently dealing with an Cisco WLC 9800-L that has a few APs behind it, the WLC has SNMP on it and is working properly.

However, I was asked to setup SolwarWinds Atlas Map with the APs in it showing some details (initially we were hoping for a heat map, but SolarWinds does not support the WLC in question).

My idea was to get the info for the APs from the Cisco WLC. After a lot of Googling and ChatGPTing, here is where I am at:

I found a few OIDs to give me some details on the APs behind the WLC (e.g: bsnApIpAddress 1.3.6.1.4.1.14179.2.2.1.1.19 and bsnAPName 1.3.6.1.4.1.14179.2.2.1.1.3) However, when I add this to the UDP, it gives me the APs IPs and the AP Names into a Tabular format that I cannot use to add to the Network Atlas Map.

My goal is to show all the APs with it's information beside on a map, but in order to do that, I would need to format that data, which I have tried, but without any success. I saw some options to use SQL query, however, I am a pretty beginner with all of that, and would like to stick with "the easiest way" (sticking to GUI) if there is any.

Would anyone be able to assist me with that? Transforming a Tabular output into a ordered list to show on the map?

Here is what I would like it to look like in the Atlas Map.

Name: AP01 Status: Online IP: 192.168.0.1 Temperature: 22C
Name: AP02 Status: Online IP: 192.168.0.2 Temperature:22C
Name: AP03 Status: Online IP: 192.168.0.3 Temperature:22C
Name: AP04 Status: Online IP: 192.168.0.4 Temperature:22C
Name: AP05 Status: Online IP: 192.168.0.5 Temperature:22C

What is the easiest way to achieve that? Keep in mind that enabling SNMP on the AP itself is NOT an option as I was told that since the AP is behind the WLC that cannot be done.

Thank you in advance.

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HerrDoktor

If you want to show the individual devices in a map, they need to be an individual entity in the database. The „list“ you mentioned is only one entity with multiple sub-entries.

having said this, unfortunately you need to add the APs at least as an ICMP node to the Platform. The tricky part will be adding the information from the UnDP to each individual entity.
as you want to keep it to the GUI… I don’t have any ideas.
i personally would update a „Note“ Field for the node with the information in the backend via API and show the note field on your map.

bobmarley

I agree with @HerrDoktor simply add the nodes as ICMP nodes. I had the same situation where the Engineers could not get the Wireless controllers to be set up correctly but the WAP's were in the database tables so I have a powershell (somewhere) that I used to add all of them. Once done initially I just set up network discoveries that run monthly that pull any new ones in. Mine are pingable, however the pings route through the wirelless controller (if I remember correctly).

C_User

Hi @HerrDoktor and @bobmarley I currently have the nodes being monitored with ICMP, but I was asked to investigate the possibility to have them individually monitored with SNMP, but apparently that doesn't seems to be possible.

The initial goal was to have a heatmap done with those nodes, but I was also told by SolarWinds that this is not possible with that specific model and that I would need a different Cisco tool for it. Sort of disappointing.

But then my team decided to have only more details on the node since with the SNMP details we would possibly give me some insight of what is happening on the AP.

I am a novice on the SolarWinds platform and I am learning as I go, thus I prefer to keep it in GUI for now, but if you have any other tips, I am welcoming suggestions.

Thank you in advance.

bobmarley

I was under the impression that the wireless controller provided an snmp gateway function that allowed that type of communication itself. Have not tried it personally but google search resulted in this "To retrieve the temperature of specific SNMP access points behind a Cisco WLC 9800-L controller, you need to access the controller's SNMP interface using a network monitoring tool, and query the appropriate OIDs (Object Identifiers) that correspond to the AP temperature data; ensure SNMP is enabled on the controller and that you have the correct read-only community string and access permissions for the desired APs." So it does sound doable, but you need to direct the queries to the controller. Monitor Catalyst 9800 WLC via SNMP with OIDs - Cisco

C_User

Thanks for replying!
We already have the SNMP setup on that controller, and I can get most of the info for the APs under that WLC interface. However, we wanted to have all this info combined into SolarWinds to have everything at glance in 1 platform. As you mentioned, we can query the info on the Wireless controller, however, to query it to a heatmap we would need "a networking tool" that's where I was hoping that SolarWInd would come in, but according to SolarWinds tech, specifically for the 9800-L, the tool to generate a heatmap is not supported. Wireless heat map support in NPM.