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NPM Poller Information

Hello,

I have been reviewing the Polling Engine Settings on our Orion NPM server (v9.5.0), and I have some questions that I hope can be answered here. I could not find my answers in the NPM Admin Guide.

Node Polling: What is used to poll a node? I am assuming ICMP Ping, but I just want to make sure.
Interface Polling: What is used to poll an interface? ICMP Ping, SNMP, or both? If SNMP is involved, what specifically is polled?
Volume Polling: I am assuming that SNMP is used to poll a volume, and I would like to know what specifically is polled.

Node Status

There is a setting in the Web UI: “Unresponsive nodes are considered down after: <N seconds>”. Unresponsive in what way? No response to ICMP ping? No response to SNMP? Both?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

John

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Accepted answers

FormerMember

I submitted a ticket with support prior to leaving on vacation. Here's their reply, which confirms most of the answers already given. Thanks again to everyone that helped.

--------------------------------------

Hi John,

Thanks for Contacting Solarwinds Technical Support

For interface we look at:

http://tools.cisco.com/Support/SNMP/do/BrowseOID.do?local=en&translate=Translate&objectInput=ifOperStatus

For volumes we look at:

http://tools.cisco.com/Support/SNMP/do/BrowseOID.do?local=en&translate=Translate&objectInput=hrDeviceStatus

All comments

Questionario

Hi,

I'll answer some of your questions, the rest I am just too lazy to look up (you can do that yourself by checking which OID is for the information Orion gives you!)

When a node is polled, ICMP is used, when an interface is polled, SNMP is used (you cant "ping" an interface in Orion). Same with volumes, its an SNMP request to the node.

what exactly is being polled on interfaces and volumes you can check by seeing what information orion gives you... just do a MIB walk on a device to see what the specific OID is.

As for the node status, unresponsive means no response to probes (ICMP ping).

neilmborilla

Node Polling: What is used to poll a node? I am assuming ICMP Ping, but I just want to make sure.
Interface Polling: What is used to poll an interface? ICMP Ping, SNMP, or both? If SNMP is involved, what specifically is polled?
Volume Polling: I am assuming that SNMP is used to poll a volume, and I would like to know what specifically is polled.

Node and interface polling used both ICMP and SNMP. SNMP is involved in interface in getting information's such as IFname, description, MTU/speed, bandwidth, Rx and Tx, Packet loss, and many more

Volume Polling used SNMP to get Hard Disk Info, CD, Physical and Virtual Memory, and many more

many more-meaning it depends on your requirement and the MIBs and OIDs of that device such as disk queue, performance counter, etc

Node Status
There is a setting in the Web UI: “Unresponsive nodes are considered down after: <N seconds>”. Unresponsive in what way? No response to ICMP ping? No response to SNMP? Both?

Both SNMP and ICMP

FormerMember

Thanks for the answers and clearing up my confusion on what is being polled for each type of resource.

However, now I'm confused about what the pollers are doing when polling the status of an Interface or Volume via SNMP.

There are settings for "Polling Intervals" and "Polling Statistics Intervals". When a poller is checking the status of an Interface or a Volume, is the poller checking a subset of SNMP data compared to Statistics polling? If so, what specifically is being polled?

neilmborilla

Status Polls provide UP/DOWN (ICMP)

Statistics Polls provide detailed information such as Memory Usage, CPU Lode, Etc (SNMP)

You may find this link very helpful

http://www.solarwinds.com/support/orion/docs/gaps/gaps.htm

pacetti

outsidesys,

Node, Interface and Volume Polling Intervals apply to ICMP polls "to determine status and response time".

Node, Interface and Volume Statistics Polling Intervals apply to SNMP polls to determine "performance statistics".

For more information, see "Orion Polling Settings" in the SolarWinds Orion NPM Administrator Guide.

I'll make sure the SNMP/ICMP distinction is clarified in the next document release.

Thanks,

FormerMember

@neilmborilla,

Thank you for the link. Here's what I found from that documentation:

"Status polls provide the up-down status of an element. Statistics polls return detailed information, for example, memory usage, CPU load, and core temperature.

"Orion checks up-down status every 120 seconds. For nodes, this information is collected by ICMP ping. For interfaces and volumes, this information is collected through an SNMP request."

So that clears up how the status polling is working for nodes, interfaces, and volumes.

However, I would still like to know what the poller is requesting via SNMP to determine the status of an interface and a volume. Can anyone give me OIDs?

Having this information will go a long way when creating alerts. For example, when I create an alert that has a trigger condition for volume status, I am given a choice of Up, Down, Warning, and Unknown. Besides the Up condition, what specifically determines each of the other conditions?

Thanks again for everyone's input.