I rely on NCM's records & queries of Cisco switch port status ("Last input" of data) to build reports that show how many ports have no link, and how long they've gone without traffic input.
But each time I reboot a Cisco switch for an upgrade, the traffic history for the switch's ports is lost, rendering NCM's custom reports much less helpful.
It would be very nice if NCM could be configured to save the port traffic history prior to a switch reboot, and then to reapply it to it records of the switch's ports after the reboot. For example, suppose the switch had been up 500 days, and it had been 200 days since data was received on a particular port. The switch gets rebooted for an upgrade and all port counters are reset to zero. Two days later it looks like it's only been two days since traffic was received on that port that's been down for 200 days. NCM could take the switch's reboot into account--perhaps with radio boxes that could be checked to enable adding the history of those ports prior to the reboot into the report when it's run.
I'm not suggesting NCM push different stats somehow into the switch. Just that NCM would let us tell it "A switch is about to be rebooted. Collect its stats now, and apply them to the report after the switch comes up."
It could even be simpler--remember the last stats displayed on the report, and import them into a new report when it is run, with the option to identify these stats as having been kept from the time prior to the switch's reboot.
That way the reports show the actual last time traffic was received on a port, instead of showing the last time it was received since the switch was rebooted.
