Monitor Switches
With the NetQ GUI, you can monitor individual switches separately from the network. You are able to view the status of services they are running, health of its various components, and connectivity performance.
For network-wide monitoring, refer to Monitor the Network.
Contents
Monitor Switch Performance
Viewing detail about a particular switch is essential when troubleshooting performance issues. With NetQ you can view the overall performance and drill down to view attributes of the switch, interface performance and the events associated with a switch.
Switch Card Workflow Summary
The small Switch card displays:
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hostname of the switch
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overall performance status, score, and trend
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performance score over time
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indication of alarms, when present
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The medium Switch card displays:
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overall health score or performance over time for network services
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overall health score or performance over time for traces
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overall health score or performance over time for interfaces
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overall health score or performance over time for the device
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count and distribution of alarms
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The large Switch card contains two tabs.
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The Attributes tab displays:
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hostname
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MAC and IP management addresses
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platform vendor and model
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ASIC vendor and model
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operating system (OS) and version
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NetQ Agent version
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License identifier
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total number of interfaces and their states
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The Resource Utilization tab displays:
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device performance statistics (CPU and memory utilization, up time)
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network-related database table usage (IP, MAC, ACL, routing)
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The full screen Switch card provides a tab all events for the given switch.
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View the Overall Health of a Switch
When you want to monitor the health of a particular switch, open the small Switch card. It is unlikely that you would have this card open for every switch in your network at the same time, but it is useful for tracking selected switches that may have been problematic in the recent past or that you have recently installed. The card shows you:
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the occurrence of events on the switch during the specified time period
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if none are present, the card displays Good
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if one or more events are present, the card displays an alarm bell,
, and the highest severity of the events present—Info, Warning or Critical
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a health score, from 0 to 100, calculated as the average of overall scores for
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health of the network services running on the switch
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interface performance
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platform health
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success of scheduled traces
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count of alarms
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a trend in the form of an up or down arrow when the performance score has increased or decreased over the last two time periods; no arrow is shown if the trend is unchanged
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a line chart showing the distribution of alarms
View Health Performance Metrics
When you are monitoring switches that have been problematic or are newly installed, you might want to view more than a summary. Instead, seeing key performance metrics can help you determine where issues might be occurring or how new devices are functioning in the network.
To view the key metrics, open the medium Switch card. The card shows you the overall switch health score and the scores for the key metrics that comprise that score. The key metric scores are based on the number of alarms attributed to the following activities on the switch:
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network services, such as BGP, EVPN, CLAG, NTP, and so forth
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scheduled traces
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interface performance
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platform performance
Also included on the card is the total alarm count for all of these metrics. You can view the key performance metrics as numerical scores or as line charts over time, by clicking Charts or Score at the top of the card.
View Attributes of a Switch
For a quick look at the various attributes of a particular switch, open the large Switch card. Attributes are displayed as the default tab. They include:
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Hostname
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Management IP address
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Management MAC address
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Platform vendor and model
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ASIC vendor and model
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Operating System and version
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NetQ Agent version
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Cumulus Linux license identifier
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Total number of interfaces and their state
View Resource Utilization
Knowing how well your switches are using their resources can be useful when determining such problems as insufficient memory or validating database table sizes when you are seeing overflow errors.
To view the resource usage for a switch, open the large Switch card, hover over the card, and click
. The card displays the highest usage rate and the distribution of hardware-related performance metrics on the left and database table metrics on the right.
View Switch Events
To view the events specific to a particular switch, versus all events, use the full screen Switch card, All Events tab. From here you can view all of the events, of every severity and category, that have occurred on the switch. Filter the listing by the Source column and scroll as needed to find all events for a given switch.
Monitor Switch Component Inventory
Knowing what components are included on all of your switches aids in upgrade, compliance, and other planning tasks.
NetQ uses some unique terminology to describe the inventory status and communication status of a switch.
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When describing a switch as a member of NetQ's inventory list or not, switches are identified as:
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Expected: contained in the inventory list
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Unexpected: not contained in the inventory list, but ( discovered/heard by NetQ? )
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When describing when a switch last responded to a request, expected switches are identified as:
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Fresh: last response received within 15 seconds
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Rotten: last response received more than 15 seconds ago
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Missing: not heard from within the time period selected on the card
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Switch Inventory Card Workflow Summary
The small Switch Inventory card displays:
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total number of switches
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distribution and count of inventory status
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distribution and count of communication status
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The medium Switch Inventory card displays:
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the distribution and unique count of disk sizes deployed
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the distribution and unique count of Operating Systems deployed
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the distribution and unique count of NetQ Agents deployed
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the distribution and unique count of ASIC vendors and models deployed
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the distribution and unique count of platform vendors and models deployed
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the distribution and unique count of CPU models deployed
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the distribution and unique count of license states
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the distribution and unique count of memory sizes deployed
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The large Switch Inventory card contains four tabs.
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The Summary tab displays:
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distribution and unique count of components sorted by software and hardware
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The ASIC Details tab displays:
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distribution of ASIC vendors
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distribution of ASIC models
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The Platform Details tab displays:
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distribution of platform vendors
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distribution of platform models
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distribution of license states
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The Software Details tab displays:
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distribution of operating systems
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distribution of NetQ Agent versions
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The full screen Switch Inventory card provides tabs for all switches, ASIC, platform, CPU, Memory, disk, and OS components.
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There are a multitude of ways to view and analyze the available data within this workflow. A few examples are provided here.
View a Summary of Communication Status for All Switches
A communication status summary for all of your switches across the network is available from the small Switch Inventory card. After opening the card, the communication status can be seen on the bottom half of the chart. The distribution of missing, fresh, and rotten switches is shown. Refer to definitions at the beginning of this topic. Hover over any of the segments in the chart to view the number of switches in that communication state along with the percentage of total switches this represents.
If you have a large number of switches in the missing state, you may want to increase the time period for the card so that you have a more compete picture of the status. If you have a large number of switches in the rotten state, you probably have a significant configuration issue with the switch or the NetQ Agent. If all of your switches are in the fresh state you can be happy and move on to other things.
View the Number of Types of Any Component Deployed
For each of the components monitored on a switch, NetQ displays the variety of those component by way of a count. For example, if you have three operating systems running on your switches, say Cumulus Linux, Ubuntu and RHEL, NetQ indicates a total unique count of three OSs. If you only use Cumulus Linux, then the count shows as one.
To view this count for all of the components on the switch:
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Open the medium Switch Inventory card.
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Note the number in the Unique column for each component.
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Scroll down to see additional components.
By default, the data is shown for switches with a fresh communication status. You can choose to look at the data for switches in the rotten state instead. For example, if you wanted to see if there was any correlation to a version of OS to the switch having a rotten status, you could select Rotten Switches from the dropdown at the top of the card and see if they all use the same OS (count would be 1). It may not be the cause of the lack of communication, but you get the idea.
View the Distribution of Any Component Deployed
NetQ monitors a number of switch components. For each component you can view the distribution of versions or models or vendors deployed across your network for that component.
To view the distribution:
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Open the medium or large Switch Inventory card. Each component has a chart showing the distribution.
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Hover over a segment of the chart to view the name, version, model or vendor and the number of switches that have that deployed. You can also see the percentage of all switches this total represents.
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Point to additional segments on that component or other components to view their detail.
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Scroll down to view additional components.
View the Number of Switches with Invalid or Missing Licenses
It is important to know when you have switches that have invalid or missing Cumulus Linux licenses, as not all of the features are operational without a valid license. Simply open the medium or large Switch Inventory card, and hover over the License chart to see the count.
To view which switches have invalid or missing licenses, either:
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hover over the large Switch Inventory card and click
to open the Platform Details tab. Above the Licenses chart on the right, click Show All. From this card you can also view which platforms have the most bad licenses by hovering over the Platform chart on the left.
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open the full screen Switch Inventory card and click the Platform tab.
View the Most Commonly Deployed ASIC
It can be useful to know the quantity and ratio of many components deployed in your network to determine the scope of upgrade tasks, balance vendor reliance, or for detailed troubleshooting. You can view the most commonly deployed components in generally the same way. Some components have additional details contained in large card tabs.
To view the most commonly deployed ASIC, for example:
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Open the medium or large Switch Inventory card.
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Hover over the largest segment in the ASIC chart. The tooltip that appears shows you the number of switches with the given ASIC and the percentage of your entire switch population with this ASIC. Click on any other component in a similar fashion to see the most common type of that component.
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If you opened the medium Switch Inventory card, s witch to the large card.
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Hover over the card, and click
to open the ASIC Details tab. Here you can more easily view the various vendors and platforms based on the ASIC deployed.
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Hover over the Vendor pie chart to highlight which platforms are supported by the vendor; and vice versa, hover over the Platform pie chart to see which vendor supports that platform. Moving your cursor off of the carts removes the highlight.
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Click on a segment of the Vendor pie chart. The data in the Platform chart is filtered (as it was on the hover action), but the filter is applied placing the corresponding filter tag at the top of the charts , and keeping the data in view.
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To return to the complete view of vendors and platforms, click
to close and discard the filter.
View the Number of Switches with a Particular NetQ Agent
It is recommended that when you upgrade NetQ that you also upgrade the NetQ Agents. You can determine if you have covered all of your agents using the large Switch Inventory card. To view the NetQ Agent distribution by version:
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Open the large Switch Inventory card.
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Hover over the card and click
to open the Software Details tab.
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Hover over the chart on the right view number of switches using the various versions of the NetQ Agent.
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Hover over the Operating System chart to see which NetQ Agent versions are being run on each OS.
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Click either chart to focus on a particular OS or agent version.
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To return to the full view, click
to close and discard the filter.
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Filter the data on the card by switches that are having trouble communicating, by selecting Rotten Switches from the dropdown above the charts.
View a List of Switches that Have Not Communicated Recently
Is there a way to see a list of all rotten switches? You can see a count on the small card, but how do you get to the actual list that this number is generated from?
View a List of All Data for a Specific Component
When the small, medium and large Switch Inventory cards do not provide either enough information or are not organized in a fashion that provides the information you need, open the full screen Switch Inventory card. Select the component tab of interest and filter and sort as desired. Export the data to a third-party tool, by clicking Export. (does this export the entire data set? selected rows? only the filtered data? max number of rows?)