Data Storage and Display Options
Subscribe

From OpenNMS

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

Summary

This page describes additional storage and display options for SNMP interface data gathered by the OpenNMS collectd daemon. A case will be presented outlining the needs and requirements, and some discussion of configuration will follow. A FAQ link appears at the end.

Network Environment

Since OpenNMS is intended to be an enterprise management solution we can make the following observations.

  1. The enterprise may consist of several separate internal organizations or departments with varying degrees of autonomy.
  2. Technical personnel who manage and configure network nodes such as switches and routers may or may not be the same people who manage and configure OpenNMS for the enterprise.
  3. Data centers and server farms may consist of large numbers of servers. Server system administrators may or may not be the same people who manage the network devices that provide connectivity to these servers. Server system administrators may be unable or unwilling to provide access to snmp agents on their servers.
  4. A campus enterprise may consist of a large number of separate buildings interconnected with a network infrastructure.
  5. Changes in network device configurations are likely to be frequent due to adds, moves, deletes, and upgrades.

Objectives

  1. Collect traffic data to/from servers in data centers and server farms without requiring SNMP agents on the servers.
  2. Collect traffic data for core network infrastructure links to a large number of campus buildings or other divisions within the enterprise by collecting on a small number of core switches and routers rather than collecting data from a large number of endpoints.
  3. Provide an optional means of storing and displaying SNMP interface data that can be more closely linked to the logical device or link being monitored, for example traffic to and from a server, rather than the physical switch or router port to which the server is connected. This is a key objective.
  4. Provide the ability to distribute a portion of the management responsibility for data storage to departmental technical staff when and where appropriate.
  5. Insure that any departments that may have distributed management responsibility don't interfere with each other.
  6. Provide the above distributed management responsibility without granting OpenNMS administrative status to the departmental network managers, and without making it available to unauthorized persons.
  7. Reduce the amount of manual intervention required on the part of the OpenNMS administrator when managing data collection and storage.

Usage

  1. The OpenNMS administrator chooses to enable this optional data storage feature for a group of network nodes. This group is called a domain. Members of the domain may be chosen based on departmental administrative boundaries, or any other rationale that provides a logical grouping of devices. A domain may contain a single device or many. In the case of a departmental domain, this would probably be done in consultation with the departmental network administrators.
  2. The OpenNMS administrator configures a separate data collection package for each domain. Package options provide additional flexibility when a combination of storage methods is desired for the nodes covered by a package.
  3. The departmental administrator configures descriptive names (ifAliases) for the active ports on each switch or router in the department's domain. These should be unique within the domain.
  4. Users view data stored by domain/ifAlias from Home > Reports > Resource Graphs by selecting the desired "Domain:" resource. Users may also view data from Home > Reports > KSC Reports by selecting a domain from "Domain SNMP Interface Reports" or by incorporating individual graphs into KSC Performance Reports.
  5. Users may search for nodes on the OpenNMS system with interfaces having an ifAlias matching a string of characters using a new choice on the search page, "ifAlias containing". This is a partial string match analogous to "Name containing".
  6. When the departmental administrator moves a device such as a server to a new physical port, he/she deletes the descriptive name assigned to the old port from the old port's configuration and adds it to the new port's configuration. OpenNMS continues to store interface data associated with the server in the same rrd file used before the move.
  7. User views traffic data to/from the server moved in item 6 above using one of the new viewing options and sees a continuous graph of traffic data covering the time periods before and after the move.

Configuration File

Below is a package from collectd-configuration.xml used for domain/ifAlias storage. Each new option will be explained below. 

<package name="example2">
  <filter>IPADDR IPLIKE *.*.*.*</filter>   
  <specific>1.1.1.1</specific>
  <include-range begin="1.1.1.2" end="1.1.1.3"/>
  <include-url>file:/etc/opennms/include</include-url>
  <storeByIfAlias>true</storeByIfAlias>
  <storeByNodeID>normal</storeByNodeID>
  <ifAliasDomain>mydomain</ifAliasDomain>
  <storFlagOverride>true</storFlagOverride>
  <ifAliasComment>#</ifAliasComment>
                
  <service name="SNMP" interval="300000" user-defined="false" status="on">
    <parameter key="collection" value="default"/>
    <parameter key="port" value="161"/>
    <parameter key="retry" value="3"/>
    <parameter key="timeout" value="3000"/>
  </service>
</package>
storeByIfAlias 
This is the main configuration parameter for this feature. If it is absent or false, all the following options are ignored, and data storage proceeds in the regular manner as before. Allowable values are true (yes,on) or false (no, off). Default is false.
storeByNodeID 
Determines if data will also be stored by nodeId/interface. Allowable values are true (yes, on), normal, or false (no, off). True means data will be stored by nodeId/interface if data is being stored by domain/ifAlias OR if the snmpStorageFlag indicates it should be stored. False means data will not be stored by nodeId/interface. Normal means data will also be stored by nodeId/interface according to the setting of the snmpStorageFlag. Default is normal.
ifAliasDomain 
This text string specifies the name for the domain. If it is absent, the name defaults to the package name.
storFlagOverride 
If true, data will be stored by domain/ifAlias regardless of the snmpStorageFlag setting. If false, data will only be stored by domain/ifAlias if an ifAlias exists for an interface AND the snmpStorageFlag would normally permit data from this node and interface to be stored. Allowable values are true (yes, on) and false (no, off). Default value is false.
ifAliasComment 
An optional comment character that can be used by network administrators when assigning ifAliases to switch/router ports. The comment character and all following characters will be ignored when creating file names for storage by domain/ifAlias. Any white space immediately preceding the comment character will also be ignored. The comment character can be used to add information to an ifAlias that may change with a move, such as a wiring jack number, without affecting the file name used for storage. An ifAlias that begins with a comment character is treated as if the interface has no ifAlias. Default is no character. 
 See also: Domain_ifAlias_storage_matrix.

FAQ 

 See Domain-IfAlias_Data_Storage_FAQ.

Version History/Availability

Retrieved from "http://www.opennms.org/wiki/Data_Storage_and_Display_Options"