CiscoWorks LMS Real-Time Monitoring

AhmedEl-Eraky · ‎06-18-2007

Hi everyone,..

I am using LMS 4.5

I have the following modules installed: RME 4.0.3, DFM, IPM, CM and CS of course.

I am trying to get every possible way of reporting and graphing CiscoWorks is capable of.

I am trying to make LMS perform real-time monitoring on the network, and for me to be able to get real-time graphs on Link/BW utilization, Network/device uptime graphs, real-time response time and so forth.

Apart from the obvious ciscoView graphs as well as the Campus Manager topology services (of which I have reduced the discovery and polling time to detect any failure in a time closer to real-time).

In addition, to syslog, snmp traps as well as email notifications on many critical issues that can happen at the network.

Is there a way for me to get charting and graphing capabilities for issues like response time, utilization, failures, collisions and so on in the form of pie charts, bar graphs, and so forth.

In that sense, I can also get some form of historical reporting (even if for a short time-period) on failures, errors or network fail-times or network high utilization periods.

really appreciate the response.

thanks....

miheg · ‎06-19-2007

LMS 4.5 eh ....?

Well,

Ciscoworks is not to be seen as a monitoring tool. Certainly not as a realtime.

It is also not going to get you bandwidth and utilization stats.

I also don't it's a good idea to start bombarding someone with all the reports and alerts ciscoworks can generate.

Better get a monitoring tool and use ciscoworks for some specific diagnosing.

Cheers,

Michel

AhmedEl-Eraky · ‎06-24-2007

Thank you all for the response.

I tried the Mini-RMON component in CiscoView. That's a real-time monitoring component, right?

I can set up alarm thresholds and events, however all the graphs are in the Zero.

Is there any needed configuration on the devices themselves?

Thanks...

miheg · ‎06-24-2007

The mini-RMON is realtime.

Normally you can do it via the gui but I found it to much clicking.

The same command can be pushed in the devices much quicker via telnet/ssh.

But it can be useful if you carefully select the ports you wish to monitor(e.g no all, trunks only)

You may wish to try and reconfigure one port going via the build in help as I don't see why the graphs would not indicate anything unless you use an unused port.

Cheers,

Michel

AhmedEl-Eraky · ‎06-24-2007

hello,

okay, the Mini-RMON is working (i am not sure what solved it exactly but i did restart the server, anyhow) and I am finally getting some readings on the graphs.

However, stats still start out at Zeros, then they read at following refreshes.

This way this is no such thing as historical reporting, isn't there?

Is there a way for such historical trending?

will RMON2 solve this and if so how am i supposed to activate this?

thanks....

miheg · ‎06-24-2007

I recall there was real time and history stats you must define first.

There RMON holds only the last X (you define the number of buckets) values it measured.

There is noting really for trending and so.

No RMON2 won't help, it's basicly more of the same sort. More protocol orriented.

It's active but you must configure it e.g. tell it what to hold on and for how long.

It's nice if you can have a application like MRTG tap into RMON because you can restart your server without losing polls.

Cheers,

Michel

AhmedEl-Eraky · ‎06-25-2007

hi,

ok....

actually i've configured the following 2 commands under the interface which I am collecting from (the switch uplink in this case)....

rmon collection stats 2 owner monitor

rmon collection history 1 owner monitor buckets 250 interval 180

so it has some historical reference of past readings but as i understand, they are lost if the switch is reloaded or something....

because it was going fine till of a sudden all of my configured alarms were lost...

RMON2 won't make much of a difference, huh..... so i'll be getting the same graphs more or less....

and that's the full of LMS real-time monitoring and graphical representation i suppose....

I am trying to tweak more into the mini-RMON component,

thanks....

David Stanford · ‎06-19-2007

There's nothing in the application right now that can really do this sort of historical reporting/trending.

IPM could do some data on SAA/IP SLA if you had devices configured for that though.

In LMS 3.0 which is coming out soon, Campus Manager will allow more real time updates to the topology map when a device goes offline. You'll be able to specify some monitoring/polling times for specific devics on the topo map.

miheg · ‎06-19-2007

Great!

Does it only react to it's own polling?

What about the DFM and RME events?

Cheers,

Michel

Joe Clarke · ‎06-24-2007

There is no integration between DFM and the Campus Manager map, or with Campus Manager's device polling. The functionality of RME and DFM have not changed.

The polling to which Dave refers is called critical device polling (based on the same devices and links polling in previous versions). Basically, you specify a small set of devices you deem to be critical to your network (e.g. core routers, VP/CEO switches, etc.) and ANI will poll them more frequently than the rest of the devices. Because of this more frequent polling, their status will change on the Topo map more quickly.

miheg · ‎06-24-2007

Thanks for your answer Joe.

At the moment, certain network events picked up by RME and DFM are written to their databases. So for Campus to pick up these events doesn't require RME and DFM to change. Campus just needs to check the other components DB's. (I'm sure these DB's are documented within Cisco so that can't be to hard) And Campus has enough information about the devices to resolve the events to the devices although I think resolving the event to a device using the DCR would be less resource intensive.

To bad the decision is made to partially duplicate DFM's polling.

Cheers,

Michel