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Network Device Monitoring In Essentials 2007
By Pete Zerger
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-05-01
The whole point of System Center Essentails 2007 (aka SCE) is delivery of the base elements of operations and systems management in a single console It is important to remember, the features you know from big brother Ops Mgr 2007 are still lurking there in the Authoring space, (providing some potential consulting opportunities in some mid-market scenarios to be sure).
Essentials brings several key components for IT operations to the party, including the monitoring functionality of Ops Mgr, WSUS 3.0 patch management with extensions to allow import of 3rd party catalogs, software deployment, base level software and hardware inventory, a robust set of reports out of the box.....but it's network device monitoring I want to drill down on here.
Because SCE is designed to be a single box solution (although you can deploy the database to a separate server), you don't have some of the enterprise options like deployment of multiple mgmt servers, gateway servers, ACS. On the upside, AEM is in there, and all the monitor and rule types, distributed app design, etc. As it was explained to me, if a management pack runs in OpsMgr 2007, it will run in SCE. That is not so easy at the moment, as version requirements on some of the dependent libraries prevent this (try the ASP.NET 2.0 MP and you'll see what I mean). Presumably, this will work itself out in the RTM version of SCE. But I digress...on to network monitoring.
SCE 2007 ships with an included Network Device MP to perform basic monitoring of SNMP-enabled network devices, like routers and switches (it was referred to as 'shallow monitoring' when originally explained to me). The ability to perform an SNMP GET, a feature we did not have in MOM 2005, really opens the possibilities here. What comes out of the box is going to surprise you if you're not already familiar with this management pack. We were actually alerted to a switch port problem in the lab within 15 minutes of deployment (knowledge out of the box - hurrah!).
Let's run through the configuration process quickly.
Device Discovery
The discovery process is going to essentially configure the SCE Server as a proxy agent for any SNMP-enabled network devices you discover, and subsequently do the device polling (via SNMP GETs).
First, run the Computer and Device Management Wizard, selecting Advanced Discovery from the dropdown, select Network Devices and then Next.
At this point, you can enter a network address….or a range of addresses. If you've used a adjacent range of addresses for your network devices and common SNMP community string (the read-only string is all that's required), you can discover your devices in a single pass.
NOTE: This version of the product only supports SNMP version 2c. Your network devices must support this version in order for discover and monitoring to succeed. (see "Troubleshooting Network Device Discovery" at the end of this post for more info on how to check this.
Viewing Discovered Devices
When you've completed this screen, click Discover. Give the discovery process a couple of minutes to do its work. When complete, you'll see your discovered network devices in the Network Device State View in the Monitoring workspace, with the state of its discovered attributes.
In this example, I discovered a 24-port Ethernet switch from a major manufacturer of networking hardware. I expected very little frankly, but was surprised when, less than 10 minutes after discovery, SCE was reporting an alert condition on my network device.
I think SCE is telling me I have a port set to half duplex!
And SCE is correct!
All without the need to download, compile, import or edit a MIB file! I am not going to miss that.
Want to investigate further? Export the mgmt pack to an .xml file and have a look at the rules and monitors contained within with notepad or XML editor of your choice.
Troubleshooting Network Device Discovery
You can verify verify a device supports SNMP version 2c with the open source snmpget utility. Download snmpget.exe and the accompanying mibs.zip file from the following URL and unzip to a local directory. Download URL: http://www.elifulkerson.com/articles/net-snmp-windows-binary-unofficial.php
1. If you are not successful discovering your target network device, verify your device supports SNMP version 2c.
2. Community string for your device, and the IP address with that of your target. Remember to replace IP and community string with those applicable to your environment.
snmpget -v2c -M D:utilitiesmibs -c public 192.168.240.250 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1.0
Assuming the device has the required SNMP support, you should see output similar to the following:
SNMPv2-MIB::sysDescr.0 = STRING: 24-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Switch w/WebView
Note that the output will very by the device you are querying. If you get no response, verify the criteria above and check with the device manufacturer to ensure your network device has the required SNMP support.
Comments
About the Author:
Pete Zerger is co-owner and consulting partner with AKOS Technology Services, an IT services firm based in Tulsa, OK. Pete specializes in Microsoft enterprise messaging and operations management technologies. Pete was recently awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) designation by Microsoft for his contributions to the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 community. Pete is also the webmaster of www.systemcenterforum.org, a community solutions site for Microsoft System Center management technologies.
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