Community
- Command Central
- MVP Program
- Monthly Mission
- Blogs
- Groups
- Events
- Media Vault
Products
- Observability
- Network Management
- Application Management
- IT Security
- IT Service Management
- System Management
- Database Management
Content Exchange
- SolarWinds Platform
- Server & Application Monitor
- Database Performance Analyzer
- Server Configuration Monitor
- Network Performance Monitor
- Network Configuration Manager
- SQL Sentry
- Web Help Desk
Free Tools & Trials
Store

Help me dump HP Openview!

All,

We're a fairly large organization with close to 1000 devices(routers,switches) that are under our direct control. We currently use HP Openview with less than stellar success and am looking at moving to Orion (we don't own it yet), but have a few questions.

First off is there a way to view things (In the Web view)in a hierarchical/collapsed type fashion with no map graphics, basically just a list of devices? By this I mean:

City 1
Site 1
Closet 1
Device 1
Site 2
Closet 1
Device 1
City 2
Site 1
Closet 1
Device 1
Site 2
Closet 1
Device 1

Etc,etc... So at top level you have an overview of all your Cities, under that each of the Sites in the city, under the sites you have your Closets, then finally under that each of your devices. Basically see all Regions on top, then get all the way down to device level with a few clicks? Does that make sense?

That's really the biggie for us cause it's just not practical to have to browse/pick through 1000 devices to find something that's having problems. If it is possible how much of a pain is it? Will this something take WEEKS to get done or is it pretty straight forward?

Next question, how is network discovery handled? I know you can plug in networks to scan, then it'll bring those discovered devices into the database and starts monitoring them. Is there a way to set it up to automatically monitor those networks and bring devices in or do you have to manually add them once you've done the network discovery? The one nice thing about Openview is that it'll constantly scan your nets and add devices as they pop up, hopefully Orion can do the same.

Lastly how are people dealing with SNMP traps? It doesn't look like Orion currently does this, is it something that might be added at some point or not on the board at all? If not what are you guys doing for SNMP Traps? Does anyone have any suggestions for a program that handles traps and includes a MIB Compiler for added functionality?

Well, that's all I have for now, hopefully I'll get some positive feedback which will help move our decision forward..

Thanks in advance!

-Steve

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

All comments

Network_Guru

Grouping in the Web Interface is quite easy to do.
It's the management interface where no grouping becomes an issue, as it's sorted alphabetically. I have pre-faced all our node names with Region, then by Building to make it easier to manage devices. You can also manage devices in System Manger using the "View" tab and sort by any parameter by clicking on the header.

I have not used the built-in Scanner to add devices, but there is no auto-discovery feature as in HP Openview. Once a device is added, you need to discover the resources and add them manually, depending on what you want to monitor (CPU, Mem, Disk, Interfaces).

You should be able to have your whole network monitored in about a day.
It will take longer to customize Orion to your needs (Reports, Custom web pages, etc).

I suggest installing the Demo version and play around with it for 30 days.
<<<Try it, You'll like it!>>>

-=Cheers=-
NG

Debbi

We moved from HPOV to Orion a few years ago. The current version of Orion allows 3 levels of grouping on the overview page, based on common snmp items (machine type, snmp location (which I use), or a custom property you might assign to nodes (like City, Site, etc.)). So you could group by City, then Site, then Closet, and under the Closet title you would see a list of your devices alphabetically. The config for this takes seconds once the properties are in place. AND, if you like, you could have a map of the Country (we have a map of our County) with icons for City, and when you click on that you might have a map of the Site, and when you click on that a map of the closet. We use our Visio maps of closets and sites. It takes some one-time setup of maps and stuff, but if you already have the diagrams, it's maybe a day's work. The nice thing is that the top level icon tell you if something under it is unhappy.

I don't use the network discovery feature, maybe someone else can address that.

We use Kiwi syslog to handle both syslog messages and traps. It is totally awesome and powerful, and inexpensive. It is a good complement to Orion. I suggest you visit their web site and contact them about the MIBs.

I am NOT a programmer at all (I am a Cisco WAN person) and spent many hours trying to get HPOV to give us what we wanted. It is a good and powerful program, but we do not have the time or $$ to devote a person to network monitoring. Orion allows us to do what we want quickly and intuitively, and to securely allow non-technical people to easily take a look, too. -Debbi

skaczkowski

What exactly does the Management interface do for you as opposed to the Web interface? Are there certain tasks that HAVE to be done in the Mgmt interface that can't be done via web, or the other way around?

Do either of you have any *BIG* problems with Orion that just really bug you?

Thanks for the feedback, very useful information. Hopefully I can get the go ahead to try out the demo!

-Steve

Network_Guru

.../skaczkowski

The web interface only allows account management & configuring the various views and reports available on the web page. All other management of nodes/interfaces/volumes/database/reports etc. must be done through the System Manager interface which runs on the server itself.
We just RDP into the server to manage the actual nodes, but make sure you close System Manager first, before quitting your RDP session, or you will end up hanging the server due to a *runaway LSASS process* (Microsoft bug).

These are the shortfalls I see with this product;

-Setting up alerting is a huge pain (no way to sort or filter nodes/interfaces you want to alert on). With 3000 interfaces, it can be challenging to alert on 30 Backbone interfaces (Huge list to scroll through).
-Managing nodes can be a pain if you don't rename them alphabetically (they are sorted alphabetically in System Manager). Hint you can use the View button to resort and manage nodes and interfaces (can sort by column).
-Interface descriptions on CatOS switches do not get picked up by Orion. The interfaces must be manually edited with the server name.
-No custom Mib support

However, once everything is setup, in a static environment, it's easily manageble.

-=Cheers=-
NG

Debbi

First, let me say I would NEVER go back to HPOV. The intuitive maneuvering and easy config cannot be beat for our needs.

Shortfalls I see in Orion:

Alert suppression is not an exact science. You schedule the main nodes to be polled more often than the downstream nodes, and, IF you are lucky, it works. If not, you get a million alerts!

Alerting scheduling constraints. See my topic "Orion Alert Scheduling".

Report "Preview" and how the report displays on the web interface are not the same. They said the development team would investigate, but that was almost a year ago and no progress.

In Alerting, cannot select a contiguous group of nodes in "Nodes to be Monitored" without clicking on each one.

No support for snmp v3.