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Syslog and Trap on the web console

Hi,

I've been wondering about this for quite a long time now and its really bothering me. So I hope someone could explain it to me.

I added syslog on the alert manager and tested and it seems like its purpose is the same as receiving an alert on the web console.

On the trap service, when I added it on the alert notification and tested it I received a trap message including its details I was wondering how the trap message will aid me in monitoring my network?

So here are my questions.

1. What's the difference between receiving a syslog message and an alert? it seems that those two are the same.

2. When I added syslog on the alert notification, I put the IP address of the Orion server on its syslog destination. Is that the right-way to do it?

3. Ok, I have the trap message. What can I do on that? I mean, how will that help me in network monitoring?

4. What is the purpose of those two in the web console? I mean, I know what a syslog and trap but what I want to know is what is the purpose of putting those two as a web console menu?

5. what is the benefit of adding those two on the alert notification?

Please help.

Thanks,

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Accepted answers

byrona

You should check out the video located at the link below. It does a good job of explaining the different methods of monitoring and why it's important to use both.

http://www.solarwinds.com/certification/learn_network_troubleshooting.aspx

All comments

robertcbrowning

Hi, Great question - And you're not alone in wondering about why there are multiple ways of hearing about the same thing.It took me ages to understand why there were so many things that seemed to be the same.

Syslog messages are created by a device when an event happens. the manufacturer determins that something is worthy and its up to the devices administrator to enable or disable the sending of that information. So Itf it's turned on, you get immediate notification that a temperature has gone high or that a fan or a power supply has failed. You can then do a text search on the incomming syslog message to determine whether you want to raise an Orion alert and send it on.

SNMP (and ICMP and WMI) are polling systems that the Orion polling engine initiates. So, if something changes it wont be noticed until Orion polls the device & receives a response.

Orion alerts are Orion specific and take some event, polling response, syslog text and considers that it is important according to your alert rules.

SNMP is useful for tracking heavy traffic, or disk capacity, but over-temps or mioodule failures are best tracked by syslog.

Hope that helps.

byrona

You should check out the video located at the link below. It does a good job of explaining the different methods of monitoring and why it's important to use both.

http://www.solarwinds.com/certification/learn_network_troubleshooting.aspx

trebor11584

@robertcbrowning

Thanks for your response.

@byrona

Great video, though it seems it has a problem because it gets stuck midway. But like I said, its very helpful.

One more question though, when I click on of the alert template in the alert manager I always see this "NetPerform" thing on the trigger action tab. Is this the action to logged the alert on the web console?

byrona

One more question though, when I click on of the alert template in the alert manager I always see this "NetPerform" thing on the trigger action tab. Is this the action to logged the alert on the web console?

Yes, you are correct. You can remove that and add a different action if you prefer.