Good monitoring tool? Currently using Solarwinds Orion...

[cornbuzzer]

I am using Orion from Solarwinds to monitor (via SNMP) performance of my servers, Cisco switches and routers. It does a pretty good job except that it does not detect input errors/CRC/collisions which is obviously a major shortcoming. When asked, Solarwinds said that 'Cisco must not be conforming to SNMP standards' and are not correctly reporting in SNMP.

Can anyone speak to this? Should I be able to use Orion as expected? Is there a Cisco tool that I should consider?

[cbeswick]

Hi,

By default, only a handful of SNMP traps are enabled in CatOS / IOS. I am no expect in network management, but I "think" you can configure an snmp trap to be generated for any number of MIB's that the device supports, though the ability of a device to do this may be dependent on its software version and hardware type.

Failing this, you could use mini Rmon to do what you require. Ethernet Errors, CRC's, collisions etc are all support via mini rmon which is built into cisco ios.

Basically, you configure the device to monitor a switch port for a specified error type, as soon as your defined threshold is breached an SMP trap can be generated that can be sent to your SNMP server. Alternatively you could get mini rmon to generate a Syslog message, which could go back to the syslog service built into Solarwinds.

Incidently configuring mini rmon manually using syntax is a bit of a pain, the mini rmon gui bundled with CiscoWorks LMS 2.5 is very good indeed in configuring this.

Hope this helps.

Chris.

[wrwiii122]

I am using the defaults and I can see the collisions and CRC errors under one of the menus in the solarwinds Pro version. I will try to find the menu that it is under.

[mnewnam01]

What devices are you monitoring?

[cornbuzzer]

Switches:

3560, 3750, 2924, 2950

Routers

2821, Pix fw

[cornbuzzer]

Hey wrwiii122 (is that your 1st name or last?) :-)

Curious what version of Orion you are using & if you were able to find out where that option was you were going to research....

TIA - Dave

[hgru]

Hi,

Closest to his last name.

Hans

[alaporte]

In Orion you get some errors:

Receive & Transmit Errors

Transmit Errors & Discards

I'm very satisfied with the Orion product in general.

It's also a good idea to get fimilar with teh Real-Time Interface Monitor that comes inside the SolarWinds Engineers edition. It will give you some additional counters to look at:

Alignment Errors per second

Mulitple Collisions

Single Collisions

FCS Errors per second

Total Alignment Errors

Late Collisions

Andy

[wrwiii122]

In the toolset, in real time interface monitor you can view all of the things that you are looking for. Some are shown by default and some you need to add to the monitoring. Alaporte is correct in saying that this is a great tool. I don't use orion but I do use the toolset.

Don't know why it matters but it is not any of my names. Why?

[cornbuzzer]

All: Thanks! I downloaded the Engineer's Edition and quickly found where I can monitor CRCs, collisions, etc. Great tool!!! Now I just have to beg my boss for a grand!

wrwiii122, sorry - my attempt at humor was lost in translation. I didn't think for a moment that this was any part of your name.

[wrwiii122]

It's OK hahahah. Sorry had to do it. Another great tool is CatTools. Check it out.