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Network Atlas - Link Utilization Issue

dunky2k

Hi,

I am trying to create a Network Map using Network Atlas to monitor the link utilization between our core network nodes for our NOC.

There are no 3rd Party ISP's / Network Providers involved in any of these links, they are all our own fibre on our own private network.

Below is an overview of what I currently see when using Network Atlas - as you can see only some of the links show the % utilization on them, some are greyed out and one is red (saying there is no link between them).

If I look at the links that are showing the utilization and look at the topology information, the nodes show both L2 & L3 connections between sites.

If I look at the links that are grey / red and look at the topology information on these nodes I only see L3 connections between nodes and no L2 connections but each node separately does show the link utilization for the link between them - see below (send / receive of one link)

All nodes have Toplogy-L2 & Toplopgy-L3 connections selected in list resources and I have selected the option to update the topology information, and even left it a few days just to be sure but still nothing on the links that only L3 connections between sites.

If I don't use the 'Show Link Utilization' radial on Network Atlas I can then add a manual label on each of the lines and parse either ${OutPercentUtil} / ${InPercentUtil} or ${Outbps} / ${Inbps} and this shows me values, but its not as neat and with some of the sites being close together its not clear as to what values are for what links.

So basically I'm trying to find out why Network Atlas won't show link utilization if there is no L2 information available or why my core nodes which are all Cisco 6500 devices show L2 information for some links but not others.

If this is just the way that Network Atlas is, then is there a better way of presenting the data using the labels, or any other way to get it looking neater?

Thanks in advance.

Duncan

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Accepted answers

superfly

My guess is that there's something not right with the setup of these 3 sites.

Are these sites configured the same as the others? Same IOS? Same kind of module in the 6500?

All comments

superfly

My guess is that there's something not right with the setup of these 3 sites.

Are these sites configured the same as the others? Same IOS? Same kind of module in the 6500?

dunky2k

superfly99

Managed to get it finally working - there was indeed an issue with some of the nodes that weren't showing the links.

All sorted and working nicely.

dgsmith80

Are you able to provide any additional insight as to your resolution in the event anyone has a similar problem in the future?

kreases

Yes that would have been handy as I am having problems but in my case all the links are just grey no utilization display

superfly

You're probably best to open your own discussion. It sounds like you can't see any utilization on any of your links. Whereas OP only had issues on a couple of their links.

Are you monitoring both end interfaces in NPM?

kreases

Yes both ends of the interface are monitored in NPM and if I click on the interface I can see the utilization on the details screen. I think I will open a ticket with Solarwinds, thanks

dunky2k

kreases Yes I finally got this working on the nodes that were only showing grey lines by doing a list resources on the nodes in question at either side of the links and ensuring that the Topology Layer 2 and Topology Layer 3 selections were selected. In my case the links that were showing grey had these options unchecked.

Once these were ticked I took the option to update the topology and after a few hours the utilization started showing.

To update the topology manually, click on settings > Manage Nodes > More Actions > Update Topology.

kreases

Thanks for letting me know what your fix was, I have already tried this and sadly it didn't make any difference so I will raise a ticket, thanks again.

dunky2k

kreases when you are connecting your devices in Network Atlas, are your endpoints the Node or the Interfaces?

Initially when I was doing this the endpoints were the actual interfaces and this didn't work quite as I'd expected, but when I used the nodes themselves I had more success.

It was just that some of the nodes didn't have the L2/L3 options selected under the list resources.

kreases

I have tried both and still get the same result. I have got both L2 and L3 selected in the resources but I have noticed when I click on 'Connect Now' in Network Atlas it doesn't find any 'L2' connections could this be the issue and if so how do I go about discovering the L2 connections apart from having it selected in resources?

jblankjblank

kreases if you go to one of the Node Details pages of the devices you are looking to see connected > go to the Network Tab > and find the NPM Topology resource, what do you see?

kreases

When I go on the Node Details screen for one of my Switches I don't have a Network Tab and I haven't seen that Network Topology screen before so I am assuming you are on a different version of NPM, I am running v12.1.

I have gone on my database and run a query against the TopologyConnections table and listed the Layer 2 connections and created a map of some of those listed in the table to prove that the Link Utilization feature does work but requires Layer 2 to do so and its clear from the table that Layer 2 information isn't being passed by the switches I wanted to map so unless there is any other way I have reached a dead end.

Thanks for your assistance

dunky2k

kreases out of curiosity, what type of switches are these and do they have CDP enabled?

kreases

The switches are predominantly Nortel Switches, I am assuming CDP is for Cisco devices

dunky2k

kreases , looks like you may have hit a brick wall my fried.

NPM uses CDP, LLDP, CAM and ARP protocols to gather topology information from switches, so unless your switches support either CCDP or LLDP then you might be out of luck.