Implemented

SNMP Trap & Syslog Rules Overhaul

In my opinion these two items have been neglected by SolarWinds for many years.  We use SNMP trapping extensively within my organization and every rule we have to create is an arduous process.  Ideally there are several aspects of both of these functions that should be improved upon.

1.  Copy/Paste rule creation.  When we look at alerts we can take a similar alert and make a copy of it altering the rule to suit our needs.  This element doesn't exist in the SNMP or Sylsog rules.  Each rule must be built from scratch.  For example I have multiple rules that are exactly the same with the minor exception being one specific OID for Netscaler traps.  If the OID equals one of our web servers we send it to the web team...if it is one of our exchange servers we send to our messaging team, and so on.  However to build these rules we have to manually create.

2.  Import/Export actions.  In alerts you can import/export an action for use within another alert.  This functionality is missing from the Syslog/SNMP rules.

3.  Enhanced ordering.  At my last count I have 160 + SNMP rules.  These rules are top down ordered.  When I create a new rule it is placed at the bottom.  If I need that rule to go to the top I have to click my mouse 160 times to get it to the top (no wonder I've had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands).  A drag an drop feature would solve this issue.

My first three requests I would think should be relatively simple because these features exist today within other components of SW.  The 4th I assume would be a little trickier to accomplish.

4.  Treat SNMP/Syslog rules like alerts that must be acknowledged (if desired).  Right now if I get an SNMP trap that I would consider to be critical it sends an email. It is not treated like an alert that requires acknowledgement.  I understand this would be a much greater challenge because you would have to have well defined reset scenarios.

I know that I am in the minority in this as it seems that many other members of the community rely less dependently on traps but they are a part of our environment and they aren't going away.  As they continue to grow I will be forced to look for alternatives to SW in this space if SW doesn't evolve these areas.  I have been using SW for 6 years and I have seen little to no improvement in these two areas.  I had hoped with the acquisition of Kiwi there would have been some nice improvements but alas that isn't the case.

Parents
  • PLEASE continue to work on this. This is one of the BIGGIST failiings in the Orion product line. so much so, that we are actually discussing moving to a new solution. (there are other factors, but this is one of the biggest).

    As more and more infrastructure products use SNMP/Syslog for communications, as well as alerting, it is more important now than ever, especially for me, to be able to leverage the Advanced Alerting options we have with NPM and Syslog/SNMP traps.  Personally, I have had at least 3 instances that a device was sending traps about a failure, only to be missed because of the clunky, non-user friendly way we have to create rules.

    ITS PAST TIME to overhaul these.

Comment
  • PLEASE continue to work on this. This is one of the BIGGIST failiings in the Orion product line. so much so, that we are actually discussing moving to a new solution. (there are other factors, but this is one of the biggest).

    As more and more infrastructure products use SNMP/Syslog for communications, as well as alerting, it is more important now than ever, especially for me, to be able to leverage the Advanced Alerting options we have with NPM and Syslog/SNMP traps.  Personally, I have had at least 3 instances that a device was sending traps about a failure, only to be missed because of the clunky, non-user friendly way we have to create rules.

    ITS PAST TIME to overhaul these.

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