Backbone Monitoring Tools

Wed Mar 29 00:47:13 UTC 2006

A few more comments.  

I found a link to snmp management for ospf in an archive message:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk869/tk769/technologies_white_paper09186a00
801177ff.shtml.  That may yield you the info you need for monitoring links
and/or routes.

>From my other message, if you collect 1) and 3) with cricket, you can
extract RTR and bandwidth data with perl from cricket's config file.  I took
a bit of code reverse engineering, but I managed to get some mod_perl code
going to do such a thing, so it can be done.  If you pull out the
appropriate interface stats, you'd be able to generate your grid for 1) and
3). 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of Ashe
Canvar
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 20:07
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Backbone Monitoring Tools

Thanks for the quick responses. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.

I already use "remstats"
(http://remstats.sourceforge.net/release/index.html) for interface b/w
monitoring. I have worked with nagios and openview int he past.

I have an ospf based network. The specific monitoring problem I am trying to
solve is  :

 1. actively test the currently active path for packet loss and transfer
     i.e. draw a latency grid between every datacenter and every other
datacenter

 2. actively detect routing changes / failover to redundant paths using
traceroutes
     i.e. alert if  SFO->CHG->NYC changes to SFO->LXE->HOU->NYC
     ( link state protocols suck as far as testing backup paths go)

3. actively transfer a fixed file
   i.e. draw a datarate grid between every datacenter and every other
datacenter

So, I am not looking for a generic graphing/alerting NMS. Does anyone use a
specific tool that is capable of doing this ?

I am in a buy vs. build debate with my boss ;)

Regards,
Ashe.

On 3/28/06, Josh Cheney <jcheney at mfx.net> wrote:
>
> I have had a decent amount of success with Nagios. It is not trivial 
> to setup, but once it is up and running, it has always handled our 
> dependencies and such very well. Additionally, because it calls 
> external programs to do the checks, it is pretty simple to write a 
> script that measures whatever value you would like to monitor. As I 
> said before, it is a pain to set up initially, but after getting it 
> set up, I couldn't be happier with it.
>
> Ashe Canvar wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I want a simple backbone monitor for my 5 datacenters. My "backbone"
> > consists of  redundant IPSEC/GRE tunnnels.
> >
> > At the very least I want to ping, traceroute and transfer a small 
> > file every few minutes over all IPSEC links. I am sure there are 
> > products that do this already, but I am having a hard time finding any.
> >
> > The display format should be noc-friendly. A basic grid with 
> > green/red status indicators at the least. Geographical maps a plus.
> >
> > Do most of you use a home grown tool for this monitoring and alerting ?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ashe
> >
> > .
> >
>
> --
> Josh Cheney
> jcheney at mfx.net
> http://www.joshcheney.com
>

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