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Nortel 450 Interface - Interface Speed and Utilization Statistics

Hi,I'm currently evaluating Orion NPM. Version is 8.5.0.I added in a Nortel Baystack 450 switch and a 100Mbit full duplex Interface on that switch. I've attached a window snapshot of the Interface attributes as reported by Nortel's device manager. Note that it displays something called "Speed" which is 2000000000. It also reports OperDuplex=full, and OperSpeed=100mbps. NPM decided that this Interface has Transmit Bandwidth of 200000000, and Receive Bandwidth of 200000000. This of course is incorrect and skews the utilization statistics. I can correct each interface by using the Custom Bandwidth checkbox, but that seems like a lot of work (vast majority of our switches are the same model).It seems to me that Nortel has identified the wrong "Speed" for the Interface on the Baystack 450s (other models of switches from Nortel seem to get configured properly by NPM), but I don't think I have any control over that (do I?). My questions: 1) Is Solar Winds responsive to "correcting" situations like this so that customers do not have to manually correct every interface that they will monitor? IE: will they make exceptions or customizations to their "auto-configuration" based on product model idiosyncrasies.

2) Would not the fields identified by the terms "OperSpeed" and "OperDuplex" be better sources for the Transmit Bandwidth and Receive Bandwidth of an Interface? If that was the case, then the 450's interfaces would get configured properly.

3) Does anybody have heart felt input into the products ability to work well with Nortel equipment in general?

Thank you much.

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charlesdf22

We had the same problem with Nortel 450 stacks as well. Upgrading didn't have any affect. We ended up having to configure each interface manually before migrating to Cisco.

bar

Rock,

We are using Orion with quite an extensive Nortel network and very pleased with the results. However we do not have any 450's so I can't properly comment on these, but I did notice that the link in question appeared to have an MLT configured, so it looks like the Nortel is reporting the aggregated bandwidth? I have checked our Nortel devices (470, 55xx, 8600, 425) and as you have said they do not have this problem.

I would suggest that the problem lies with Nortel and you should try to take up the matter with them (pointing out that this behaviour is different to all their other equipment).

We did have a problem with the slow discovery of stacked switches but this has been fixed along with foundry and extreme switches.

Failing Nortel fixing the problem there is probably a neat way of editing the database for all switches of type 450.

hope this helps,

Bar.