Better Node/Interface Search for Non-SW Admins

My Admins (net admins, not solarwinds admins), really need the functionality of this page http://oriondemo.solarwinds.com/orion/nodes/default.aspx , without the "node management" rights.

The ability to quickly reference, search and filter nodes and interfaces, without a page refresh is a must have. I really thought that 12.0 would have implemented something like this already. Please add soonest.

I tried to create a feature request, but it wouldn't let me choose a location

Pretty please.

Tony

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serena

Hi Tony!

I'm very interested to hear more about the problems you're trying to solve.

A few questions for you:

When would your admins want to search ? Would it be in response to some event e.g. a triggered alert? Or perhaps just as part of their daily troubleshooting routine?

When they search and filter on the nodes or interfaces, what would you expect to see on the resulting page? What would they do next with the results e.g. navigate to the details page?

Why do you specify specifically "without a page refresh" We definitely have heard loud and clear that the page refresh is a problem. However, I'm curious why it would be a problem specifically on the manage nodes page. Have you run into a scenario where you are trying to search on a set of data and the page refresh interrupts or refreshes the view?

I'm all ears

sgtp

Serena,

Thank you for the quick reply. Just so you know, I had a huge, very detailed message all typed up and accidentally hit the back button!! So this is my second attempt to reply

We have a pretty good size enterprise consisting of approx 100 sites several thousand nodes, and more than 10K interfaces, managed by about a very small group of admins and engineers, including myself. We don't have the entire architecture memorized, so searching for nodes or interfaces is extremely important to us. We don't always know exactly what we are searching for. Sometimes it take a couple of tries to get what we are looking for.

Since I am also the monitoring architect, I have access to the "manage nodes" page. This page is only accessible by user accounts with the "manage nodes" rights. While working with orion, I can find devices, interfaces, or groups of devices or interfaces much, much faster than my other admins/engineers.

Their process to find an interface in orion consists of the following steps:

- Open orion web page

- Using the "Search Nodes" resource on the summary page, enter search query, click search

- Wait for page to refresh

- scroll through list of nodes

- (if I found the right node), click node

- Scroll to list of interfaces

- Click interface I am looking for

- Do work.

3 clicks, 3 page refreshes, lots of time = frustrated admins

My process using the "Manage Nodes" page:

- Open orion manage nodes page

- Enter search critera, press enter (no page refresh)

- Expand node, click interface

- Do work...

1 or 2 clicks, no page refresh, clean, beautiful = happy me.

I DO NOT want my admins/engineers to have node management rights. That would just make my life miserable, having to go back and clean up node names, re-assign proper custom properties, choosing correct additional poller... It would just be a mess.

I specify "without page refresh" because we are coming to expect it. In a poll to my admins, one said "It's 2017, page refreshes are antiquated and frustrating." His words not mine . They are getting younger and younger as the years go by and are used to the web technologies such as JQuery, AJAX and the like being used on facebook, linkedIN, google where data is readily and dynamically availible with very little page refresh. These technologies provide them with the data they need in a fast, clean and intuitive manner.

I need them to be able to get to data on Orion faster than they can using a spreadsheet. I HATE IT MANAGMENT IN SPREADSHEETS. I have made it a mission in life to get rid of every IT managment document that ends in .xls, including:

- IP addresses (THE WORST)

- Device quick configs

- Daily/Weekly/Monthly report checklists

- Capacity documents

Hence the reason we have just about every module you provide. But I can't get buy in from my admins/engineers if it is frustrating for them to get to the data they need. Searching for data using the functionality provided by the "Manage Nodes" page would be a great step towards gaining that buy in.

Lastly, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond and understand our needs. It's quite refreshing. If you need any more details, please let me know.

Tony

serena

Tony,

This is absolutely wonderful feedback. Search is something that we're working on, so if you're up for it I'd definitely like to get you involved in future user research sessions.

Thanks!

Serena

sgtp

Im in like flynn.

tallyrich

I hadn't really thought about that, but the screen refreshes can cause issues with time and placing you back at a different point than where you started. Good point.

s.elmrabet

Hi,

Have a look here Add “Search for Nodes" element in every Solarwinds Webpages header with ‘hit’ Enter enabled

This can be useful to directly search for nodes at any time by using the custom page header including the node search form.

Hope this can help.

Regards;

mesverrum

I've felt that pain regarding the lack of search boxes that do what I need in various parts of solarwinds, here is a quick custom query that you can add to a page to reduce the pain of the work flow. Just add a Custom Query resource to your view and when you edit it check the box for Enable Search. First query goes in the first box, second query in the second box

SELECT n.caption as [Node], n.detailsurl as [_linkfor_Node], '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + n.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Node], i.name as [Interface], i.detailsurl as [_linkfor_Interface], '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + i.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Interface]FROM Orion.NPM.Interfaces ijoin orion.npm.interfacescustomproperties ic on ic.interfaceid=i.interfaceidjoin orion.nodes n on n.nodeid=i.nodeidWhere i.interfaceid=0

Search query

SELECT n.caption as [Node], n.detailsurl as [_linkfor_Node], '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + n.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Node], i.name as [Interface], i.detailsurl as [_linkfor_Interface], '/Orion/images/StatusIcons/Small-' + i.StatusIcon AS [_IconFor_Interface]FROM Orion.NPM.Interfaces ijoin orion.npm.interfacescustomproperties ic on ic.interfaceid=i.interfaceidjoin orion.nodes n on n.nodeid=i.nodeidWhere(i.caption like '%${SEARCH_STRING}%' orn.caption like '%${SEARCH_STRING}%')

You can get a lot more elaborate with the SWQL logic in this if needed but this is a reasonable start.

-Marc Netterfield

Loop1 Systems: SolarWinds Training and Professional Services

LinkedIN: Loop1 Systems
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Twitter: @Loop1Systems

sgtp

that looks like a step in the right direction. I'll check it out. Thank you mesverrum