Backup Interfaces and Switch Interfaces

jneiberger

I have two related questions regarding interface monitoring.

First, from what I hear it sounds like I can't disable monitoring of specific interfaces in Orion. We have a lot of routers with backup interfaces that should normally be down. Will Orion always report those interfaces as down? I'm concerned that almost all of my routers will always appear to be in a 'red' status because an interface is down. If all of my other interfaces are green and only the backup is down, I want that node to show up as green with no red.

Second, what about switch ports? Are my switch ports going to turn red every time a user powers down their PC? I really don't care about the individual status of switch ports; I'm more concerned with the status of the switch itself. Can we disable monitoring of L2 interfaces?

Thanks!
John

DonYonce

John,
You can selectivly monitor or NOT monitor any interface. For the switches, simply monitor the main upstream interfaces (and server interfaces), but do not monitor any PC ports. From the Orion System Manager right click on a Node and select "List Resources". Then uncheck the interfaces that should not be monitored.

As for backup circuits, there are a couple of solutions.

One option is to add the Node twice (using two seperate IP Addresses on the Node) into Orion. Then on one copy of the Node monitor the Primary interfaces. On the other copy of the Node monitor the Backup interfaces. Then from the Web limit the Account login to only view the copy of the Node with the Primary interfaces. (There are all sorts of ways with Custom Properties to make it real easy to group Nodes and limit Accounts). Also, add another Account login that can only see the Nodes with the Backup interfaces. This is one method that I have implemented. With the use of a Custom Property (named "Backup" for example) it's easy to group Nodes.

Another method I have seen is to go ahead and add all interfaces (Primary and Backup) to the Node in Orion, but add a Custom Property to the Interfaces (named "Backup" for example) that distinguishes which one is Primary and which one is Backup. Then from the web site block the "Backup" interface from showing up on Views such as "Top 10" or "Problems" by added the following filter to each resource that you do not want to display the "Backup" interfaces.

Interfaces.Backup <> "Backup"

Of course, you still have to tag each "Backup" Interface using the Custom Property Editor with the word "Backup" in the custom property field named "Backup".

With the new Account limitations being added in Version 7.1, you can also limit entire Accounts to only view Primary interfaces, or only Backup interfaces. Once again, this uses a Custom Property (named "Backup" for example). This is probably the easiest method, but you have to wait for version 7.1 to be released. The target release date is around the first of March 2004.