Google Earth and Solarwinds

Has anyone played with integrating Solarwinds monitoring with the Google Earth Software that is now free for download. We are developing some vessel tracking software for it internally with weather overlay and would be cool if we could have node icons on the map

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Mithrilhall

I don't know about using google earth but you could probably incorporate the google maps api pretty easily.

I'm actually going to attempt this in the future if I ever get some free time.

www.google.com/.../

Isaac

Hello Mr. Stevens,

If either of you get this to work let me know. My happy little company would like to have maps overlayed with the location of all of our substations and generation facilities from Orion. Then the kids upstairs can look at pictures that make sense to them. More importantly, our system operators and traders would be able to tell when we have lost communications with a particular site.

Be fantastic.

(I would try this myself but, unfortunately, I am the only network analyst for some 236 Cisco devices and more than 50 sites. I just don't have time. Now I'm done whining.)

profzoom

Has anyone figured this out yet?

gbrance

I would read the EULA carefully for GoogleEarth. As far as I can tell if you are using it in a business environment you have to pay for it. It is only free for residential our non-commercial use.

GB

martek01

Just export a .jpg from Google Earth and use it as the background for your Solar Winds maps. It is very easy to do and looks great.

We use either Google pictures or our own GIS data depending on what we are trying to show.

Evans Martin

---
Evans L. Martin - IS Analyst
Metro Govt. of Nashville, TN & Davidson County
615.862.4066 Office 615.862.6288 Fax AOL AIM: Martek01

jusmax

Can anyone tell me if this is absolutely legal. We would like to use screenshots of our Country and areas of interest to use as a background to plot customer networks and give them access to see the performance of their respective networks (NPM as the customer portal). I am trying to see in the permissions of use on Google's site if it is legal, however I am seeing conflicting pieces of info on their site. Can anyone point out to me where it says that it is legal to put screenshots of their maps on your website (Orion NPM).

RogerWong

The only person qualified to tell you whether a course of action is legal for your organization is your own attorney. Few lawyers would willingly risk their license to practice law by dispensing legal advice on a web forum, and the advice you get from people who aren't lawyers could get you into trouble.

AdamTAnthony

I found a way to do this that give you a live / clickable / rotatable / zoomable Earth with your network object on it.

Make your Google Earth KML with Google Earth. I made a script that polls the status of the nodes I want on the map, and then builds this KML (they're just XML files).

In this example, the KML is saved as YOUR.HTML.

Create a view that has a 'custom html' object in it. Edit that object, and add this code (replace YOURSERVERNAME and YOUR.html to match your system):

<script src="">www.gmodules.com/.../ifr

The script I created can be scheduled, so the node LEDs will be up to date as often as the scriptis run.

Here are some clean screen shots:

bshopp

Is that script something that is sharable?

AdamTAnthony

I can't because it reveals things about my system and network, but this is how it works...

The KML file can be broken into 3 parts... prefix, suffix and the waypoints/nodes.

I save the prefix and suffix as txt files ahead of time.

I get the status of my target nodes with this SQL command:

Select right(A_CUSTOM_FIELD,3) From Nodes Where Device_Type like 'A_CUSTOM_STRING' and Status not like '1'

I dump the prefix to a new txt, then for loop through the SQL results dumping to the same file, then the suffix.

You can just open that KML with Google Earth too if you want....

Here's something I started some basic work on, written entirely in Javascript. This just uses the google maps API and runs over HTTP. I set it up to work as a basic HTTP resource. It uses an XML report from orion for its data source. Very lightweight, very portable. No client software needed!

Here's the source!!

It's pretty basic. I didn't do much work with it, but the API sort of does work. I wasn't inspired enough to complete the project (I'm not a developer), it was kind of a one-night hobby deal.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <title>Google Maps JavaScript API testing! JP Senior</title>

<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&sensor=false&key=ABQIAAAA698J2b_5QdYdKSIKHxw2PxQCO9sfQ_Giw1tTCtQ-pmdD2Jo3kxRVcYLWSLe1H4M6fsGQypEQ62zvFQ"
     type="text/javascript"></script>
    <body onunload="GUnload()">

<table border=1>
  <tr>
   <td>
    <div id="map_canvas" style="width: 500px; height:300px"></div>
   </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td valign="top" style="text-decoration: underline; color: #4444ff;">
    <div id="side_bar" style="overflow:auto; height:100px;"></div>
   </td>
  </tr>
</table>

<script type="text/javascript">
      //<![CDATA[
     var map;
     var geocoder;
     var gmarkers = [];
     var side_bar_html = "";
     var i = 0;
     var sites = new Array();

     sites[0] = "Somesite somestreet, Calgary, Alberta";
     sites[1] = "555 main street, Vancouver British Columbia";
     sites[2] = "950 Oak, Sometown, Ontario";

      // A function to create the marker and set up the event window
      function createMarker(point,name,html) {
        var marker = new GMarker(point);
        GEvent.addListener(marker, "click", function() {
          marker.openInfoWindowHtml(html);
   });
GEvent.addListener(marker,"dblclick", function() {
   //Center on marker
   map.panTo(point);
   //Zoom in!
   map.setZoom(10);
});
        // save the info we need to use later for the side_bar
        gmarkers.push(marker);
// add a line to the side_bar html
        side_bar_html += '<a href="javascript:myclick(' + (gmarkers.length-1) + ')">' + name + '<\/a><br>';
document.getElementById("side_bar").innerHTML = side_bar_html;
        return marker;
      }

//We like to use the mousewheel for zooming
map.enableScrollWheelZoom();

drawpoints();

//OK now that was fun, let's try a test sql report!
var request = GXmlHttp.create();
request.open("GET", "NetPerfMon/Report.asp?Report=Unique%5FAddresses&dataformat=xml", true);
request.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (request.readystate == 4) {
  var xmlDoc = request.responseXML;
  //alert('xml loaded');
  var Report = xmlDoc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName("Record");
  for (var x = 0; x < Report.length; x++) {
   var StreetAddress=Report[x].getAttribute("StreetAddress");
   var City=Report[x].getAttribute("City");
   var Province=Report[x].getAttribute("Province");
   //Only continue if all three REQUIRED attributes are present!
   if (StreetAddress && City && Province) {
    var Search=StreetAddress + ", " + City + " " + Province;
    geocoder.getLocations(Search, addAddressToMap, Search);;
   }
  }
}
}
request.send(null);

</script>
</body>
</html>

AdamTAnthony

"No client software needed!" - That's a good point - my Google Earth solution prompts you to install the Google Earth Plugin if you don't have it installed already...

ecornwell

jp, can you share how the report is setup?

It's a device inventory report that just includes all of the new fields we set up - very simple stuff... It's a flat XML file and not very complicated at all. As long as the fields exist, the XML will be read.

The Javascript I shared above -^ didn't actually loop through the XML so much yet, and was horribly messy. I'm not a developer - I'm a network nerd, so it was more of a midnight project I did while I was waiting for some jobs to finish.

nicolas.bussieres

thanks for the hints , it helped me get all that working (Google earth and site monitoring)

for people trying to make it work , here is a little walkthrough that can help. Please keep in mind that I’m a telecom guy, not a coder … Some functions need better coding.:

On the server, modify the node custom fields (custom property editor) by adding the following properties (select nodes button, then Add button) :

City

StreetAddress

Province

PostalCode

CircuitID

LAT

LNG

This is for a Canadian site, but I guess you could put the state name in the province, or modify the script. The Circuit ID can be left empty if you’re not going to use it. LAT and LNG are left empty when creating a node. This will be auto magically found by the script. If the site changes location , just clear the data , and it will find the new LAT/LNG.

Fill a few sites with relevant information.

On the server, create a new folder called Earth in DRIVE:PATH\InetPub\SolarWinds\Orion to store the output html.

I created 2 files here , a geocoderX.bat :

cd DRIVE:\PATH\InetPub\SolarWinds\Orion\Earth

del site.html

wscript geocoderX.vbs

copy /y site.html sites.html

This calls a vbscript that does all the hard work. It’s also called by a recurrent job in windows scheduler.

Create geocoderX.vbs in the folder (yes, I know, technically I should place that elsewhere, for security reasons). Change SERVERNAME for something appropriate:

' Create file for writing KML

Set objFichier=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set MyFile= objFichier.OpenTextFile("site.html", 8,true)

' Write KML header

Myfile.WriteLine "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""UTF-8""?>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<kml xmlns=""">"">earth.google.com/.../2.1"">"

Myfile.WriteLine "<Document>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<name>GE MAP</name>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<LookAt>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<longitude>-69</longitude>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<latitude>48.5</latitude>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<range>1500000</range><tilt>0</tilt><heading>0</heading>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</LookAt>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<Style id=""SystemUp"">"

Myfile.WriteLine "<IconStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<scale>0.5</scale>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<Icon>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<href>">SERVERNAME/.../href>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<refreshMode>onInterval</refreshMode>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<refreshInterval>60</refreshInterval>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Icon>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</IconStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<LabelStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<scale>0.5</scale>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</LabelStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Style>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<Style id=""SystemDown"">"

Myfile.WriteLine "<IconStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<scale>0.5</scale>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<Icon>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<href>">SERVERNAME/.../href>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<refreshMode>onInterval</refreshMode>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<refreshInterval>60</refreshInterval>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Icon>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</IconStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<LabelStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<color>ff0000cc</color>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<colorMode>normal</colorMode>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<scale>0.5</scale>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</LabelStyle>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Style>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<description></description>"

' Open connection to sQL Database and parse Nodes table

cnstring = "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Integrated Security=SSPI;Persist Security Info=False;Initial Catalog=NetPerfMon;Data Source= SERVERNAME \SOLARWINDS_NPM;"

cmdtext = "SELECT * FROM Nodes"

Set cn = CreateObject("adodb.connection")

Set cmd = CreateObject("adodb.command")

cn.connectionstring = cnstring

cn.Open

cmd.activeconnection = cn

cmd.commandtext = cmdtext

Set rs = CreateObject("adodb.recordset")

rs.cursortype = 3

rs.locktype = 3

rs.Open(cmd)

While Not rs.EOF And Not rs.BOF

On Error Resume Next

' Assign variables to selected table fields

StreeAddress= ReplaceToUTF(rs.Fields.Item("StreetAddress").Value)

City = ReplaceToUTF(rs.Fields.Item("City").Value)

Province = ReplaceToUTF(rs.Fields.Item("Province").Value)

PostalCode = rs.Fields.Item("PostalCode").Value

NodeStatus = rs.Fields.Item("Status").Value

SysName = left(rs.Fields.Item("Caption").Value,8)

IP_Address = rs.Fields.Item("IP_Address").Value

MachineType = rs.Fields.Item("MachineType").Value

CircuitID = rs.Fields.Item("CircuitID").Value

LAT = rs.Fields.Item("LAT").Value

LNG = rs.Fields.Item("LNG").Value

'Other Variables

source_address = StreeAddress & "," & City & "," & Province & "," & PostalCode

xml_address = source_address

'Call funtion to return Long and Lat for a specified address

If (LAT = "0" or LAT = "") then

message = fgGetLatAndLongUsingAddress(source_address)

Else

message = LNG & "," & LAT

End If

Coords=split(message,",")

rs.Fields.Item("LAT").Value = left(Coords(1),10)

rs.Fields.Item("LNG").Value = left(Coords(0),11)

'For each ligne in the table create a placemark for the KML

Myfile.WriteLine "<Placemark>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<name>" & SysName & "</name>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<description><![CDATA[" & " IP Address : " & IP_Address & "<br> Machine Type : " & MachineType & "<br> CuircuitID : " & CircuitID & "]]></description>"

'Check if the node is up and assign appropriate style and icon

if NodeStatus = 1 then

Myfile.WriteLine "<styleUrl>#SystemUp</styleUrl>"

else

Myfile.WriteLine "<styleUrl>#SystemDown</styleUrl>"

End if

Myfile.WriteLine "<Point>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<coordinates>" & message & "</coordinates>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Point>"

Myfile.WriteLine "<address>" & xml_address & "</address>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</Placemark>"

rs.MoveNext

Wend

rs.Close

cn.Close

' Write KML footer

Myfile.WriteLine "</Document>"

Myfile.WriteLine "</kml>"

MyFile.Close

'function to return Long and Lat for an address

Public Function fgGetLatAndLongUsingAddress(sAddress)

On Error Resume Next

'dont over query google , wait a second between each requests

WScript.Sleep 1000

'This function works best with a complete address including the zip code

Dim sResponseText

Dim sReturn

sReturn = "none"

Dim objHttp

Dim sQuery

' Create an XML variable

set xmlDoc=CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")

xmlDoc.async="false"

'make sure theres no space in the comlete address

sAddress=Replace(sAddress, " ", "+")

' request the xml information from google

xmlDoc.load("">maps.googleapis.com/.../xml & sAddress)

'parse the xml for lat and long

weblat=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("lat").item(0).text

weblng=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("lng").item(0).text

Status=xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("status").item(0).text

'verifiy that google could find the site

If Status="OK" then

sReturn = weblng & "," & weblat

else

sReturn = Status

end if

fgGetLatAndLongUsingAddress = sReturn

End Function

' Fonction to replace some terrible french characters to english equivalent

Public Function ReplaceToUTF(StringToReplace)

'lets make things simpler and faster and convert all to lowercase ...

StringToReplace = lcase(StringToReplace)

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, ",", " ")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "à", "a")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "â", "a")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "é", "e")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "è", "e")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ê", "e")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ë", "e")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ï", "i")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "î", "i")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ô", "o")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ù", "u")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ü", "u")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "û", "u")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "ç", "c")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "æ", "ae")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "œ", "oe")

'other charaters we dont like to see in the address

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, ".", " ")

StringToReplace = Replace(StringToReplace, "-", " ")

ReplaceToUTF = StringToReplace

End Function

Its time to test the script. See if the custom LAT/LNG property gets filled.

If all goes well, go into Solarwinds NPM and create a custom HTML panel.

Paste the following in (again change SERVERNAME):

To get everything updated, just create a job in the windows scheduler to run every X minutes.