ORION a group member Custom Property

i have created an alert on a group compsed by 2 nodes and i would to retreive a custom property when a Node or both Nodes go Down.

i can get only the name of the Node using the variable ${N=OrionGroup;M=GroupStatusRootCause but when i looked how to get it's custom properties i didn't find any variable or maybe i'm missing something.

Thanks in advance.

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bobmarley

Without testing it I would make a guess ${N=SwisEntity;M=CustomProperties.DisplayName} or try ${N=SwisEntity;M=CustomProperties.YOURCUSTOMPROPERTYNAME} with your own name filled in place of YOURCUSTOMPROPERTYNAME

brscott

If it's a custom property of the group then see Bobmarley's answer, but if it's a custom property of the node then this is a MUCH longer discussion.

The short version is that if you want to alert if the node is down, then alert on the node instead of the group. Now your logic is usually like: "I want to alert when any node in that group is down". Yes that is a node alert with the condition that the node is a member of the group.

...BUT...

Next you will learn that alerting on nodes as a member of a group is next to impossible. (Yes possible, but you won't like the answer... you need an advanced knowledge of swql), so an alternative solution is to add another custom property to the node that represents the idea of a group, and there are dozens of ways to do that.

For Example: if the group you are using is called "SalesApp" to contain servers that are running SalesApp web server. Instead create a boolean (Yes/No) custom property on the node called "SalesApp" and set it to "Yes" on those two nodes. Then in the Node alert put a condition that the node has a custom property of SalesApp set to Yes.

NOTE: That example does not scale well, but I wanted it to start simple. A better choice might be a custom property called "websites" and text value of "salesapp" and use that in the alert condition.

Basically give up the idea of using groups in alerts (unless you really just want to know if the status of the group has changed on the alert) and instead use custom properties on nodes and node alerts.

Now there is one more item to discuss. Since groups are still useful in other places... keep the group, but instead of adding the nodes to the group, make it a dynamic query for the custom property.

CARION

Thanks for taking time to reply.

let me explain the reason why we are using groups in the first place, we have several types of nodes (network equipements) and we use a Custom Property called Type_NODE to classify them.

Nodes that works in a single model like access switches: we use alert based on nodes custom prototype , for this type of alert it's easy to retreive info like location, IP address and insert them in mail notification.

Groupes we use them for routers and corp switches: our client want when the first node goes down : Warning alert is created + mail notif , when the second node goes down critical alert is generated + mail notif.

we found out we can answer this need by using ORION groupes Mixed status.

the groups are going to be created manually with the node members.

we are not using group custom properties , i imagine this is useful when you want to retreive information about the group but in my case i would like to retreive node's custom' property information.

i was thinking since i can get the name of the node KO in a group , is there a way to use that in a SQL/SWQL request to retreive the associated IP address and insert it inside mail.

i noticed that there is a way to created SQL/SWQL requests, i will be very thankful i you can show how to construct a simple example on how to retreive a CP based on the name node .

brscott

Just to be clear, you can create node alerts that only alert when x or more nodes are down. I went through this similar process and fought it for months, but eventually changed to custom properties and node alerts instead of group alerts. I still think you will be happier in the long run if you make that effort... but here is the direct answer to the question:

Here are the parts you are not going to like:

1) ${N=OrionGroup;M=GroupStatusRootCause} does contain the node name, when something is down, but it's a string and contains more than just the node name. It's also not guarantied to be consistent as SolarWinds evolves. So I will not be using that variable.

2) You will only get the custom property from one node.

3) I am making the assumption that it does not matter much which node in the group that you get the custom property from, but I have to make some choice to be consistent, so I chose the group member with the highest "status" value.

4) Remember if you do this, the alert is almost impossible to understand by the next person, or maybe even you after a couple years.

Now given all of my disclaimers, here is my version of an answer to your question.

In the below example, I pull the custom property called "city" to display from the group member with the highest status code.

${N=SWQL;M=SELECT TOP 1 n.CustomProperties.City
FROM Orion.Nodes n
where Caption in (SELECT TOP 1 cm.Name FROM Orion.ContainerMembers cm
where containerid = ${N=SwisEntity;M=ContainerID}
Order by cm.status)}