Rename APEs?

Hello All!

We have a naming standard for all our infrastucture. Its great if you know the server, but we are looking to create a Human Friendly CNAME for them.
For Example,
Name Standard -> CNAME
USAZ01WS01 -> SW-NA-ORION-PRIMARY1

Here is our question,
How do we get the CNAME to show in the Web UI?
Will changing the CNAME in the DB cause problems with SNMP Polling?
(We restrict SNMP Polling to our SolarWinds Pollers, Some are set by IP, some by Name)

What else are we not considering?

Has anyone done an activity like this and can share some Lessons Learned?
adatole CourtesyIT aLTeReGoecklerwr1
Thanks!

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aLTeReGo

Option #1 - Rename the node caption the CNAME. Simple, effective, but not terribly scalable.

Option #2 - Add the CNAME as the reverse zone lookup for that IP address and Orion will automatically pick that up when the node is added.

Option #2 - Add the CNAME as a custom property. Easier to import en masse then changing the node caption, but probably doesn't appear everywhere you would want it to

Option #3 - Rename the actual device to match the CNAME. Probably going to require a lot of rebooting.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. The only option that would require more changes like re-running the Configuration Wizard, is option #4.

CourtesyIT

RFackrell,

Couple different ways to handle this one.

I like to use the Real Name of the device in the Caption or Node Name, but this can always be changed or modified to suite your needs. This would also me more manual labor.

I use Custom Properties to identify my servers function.

C1_DeviceType = Server, Layer 2 Switch, Firewall, etc.

C2_OS = 2012, 2012, RHEL, IOS, JUNOS, etc

C3_ServerFunction = Solarwinds, DHCP, DNS, AD, ApplicationX, etc.

This ways it is easier for me to call out SQL Queries by column and variable.

Hope this helps,

Eric

ecklerwr1

I like to have the CNAME reverse lookup in DNS so it's automatically picked up by Orion. Like aLTeReGo says renaming the node caption would also work. Another thing I like to do is actually name devices with a naming standard that makes it easier to automatically select nodes for groups. It's nice to have your groups automatically add members for you so whenever you add a node it's automatically is added to the correct group.

bobmarley

I think this may be what ecklerwr1 is referring to, I use a DNS alias in addition to the actual hostname of my servers so if the server has a DNS name such as w0983eapps0221 I also assign an alias of 'Orion'

to that name so you can use that name. You can also use http://orion/ to get to the server via the web, ping Orion, or RDP to it. In this manner you can assign friendly names to all of your machines.

ecklerwr1

Aliases also help if you change the names of some servers... people can still use the old names if they want to.

adatole

Also worth mentioning that this is a great use-case for digging into the Orion SDK. You can have a job that does the comparison and updates nodes where there's a mismatch. I also prefer to leave the caption as-is, and have a separate custom property that gets updated by this process, but you can do either-or.

Over the course of my time as a monitoring engineer, one of the true-isms I've found is that device name is a Fool's Errand. They will NEVER be standardized across the company. They will NEVER be as meaningful as you need. If there ever comes a point when every single device matches the naming standard, you can bet $1 and a bottle of fine scotch that:

A) you're going to find a hidden cache of devices that someone has been hiding

the "new shiny" (cloud, business process improvement, parents in a buyout, etc) are going to find a reason why that name pattern is bad, and their name pattern is good, and you'll have to change everything. Again.

Upshot: names are nice. If you need a specific name, put it somewhere that doesn't affect the rest of the company. Names are never the be-all-end-all. Combine name with other properties (customer or not) - machine type, location, owner group, criticality, etc - to create meaningful groupings that you can use in a variety of ways: reports, alerts, and so on.

</soapbox>

rfackrell

All Great answers and I thank everyone for responding.

A bit of a clarification error on my part though, I'm specifically talking about the list of Polling Engines you see on the Node Edit screen (As well as a couple other places.)
See we have a department that just purchased a APE for their devices (~1200) that for security reasons will be only used for them.

If you where to edit a node and assign it to one of these three pollers, You wouldn't know what APE is the general use one, and what one it the Department Specific one.
To that end we are wanting to give a CNAME so that:
1) Its easily referenced for those outside our Monitoring Team
2) So when this list is called (be it here or in Manage Nodes....) It can be easily determined what APE is what.

If I add a CNAME to a APE Server, along with the DNS Lookup that Ecklerw1 suggested, Would these fields update? or would I have to unlink and relink the APES? Is there a way to avoid that?

Thanks again for responding everyone!

rfackrell

I might have watched too much Thwack Content... I just read the Soapbox entirely in your voice with out realizing it.

rfackrell

In a slightly unrelated topic, We had a conversation the other day about doing this so that when ever we might need to switch hardware we could swing a name over and not break everyone's bookmarks. I know there are "better" options but really, it seems useful.

rfackrell

Absolutely, We are right there with you. We have about a dozen commonly used CPs to organize our nodes, and another 6-7 for Apps, 4 for volumes.... Custom Properties are fantastic.

ecklerwr1

Nothing is perfect but I will say when we redid our entire WAN after joining two business units into one we redid our entire naming standard and it's helped immensely with grouping in Orion.