[rrd-users] Re: Network downtime or uptime

[Joubin Moshrefzadeh]

Thanks Don for your input. For some reason I didn't see your email till now.
 
I agree with everything you say, and well, we too are still working on the definition of uptime/downtime. We sometimes get calls at the helpdesk from clients who can't login to the network, and frankly to them the network is down, but from our perspective, the switch they're plugged into is responsive and we can see it (via telnet, snmpget) so as far as my group is concerned the network is up, and the call gets passed to the server group.
 
anyway, for the time being all I'm concerned with is individual switches that make up the network. I want to find a way to poll a switch every n minutes, and based on the result, keep track of date and times when the switch is not responsive. As far as my groups concerned, if the switch is unreachable, then any users downstream of that node are disconnected. Now whether or not someone else on this group is doing something like this, and whether or not they're using RRDtool for this purpose, I'd be interested to find out.
 
As this project evolves and I figure out more of what sort of info management would like to get, I'm thinking I'll have to use an actual database tool like MySQL... because they'd like to query things like "Which nodes were down during Jan. 2004 and for how long?"
 
also, a side note, does anyone know of a utility that can map out a network, and creat some kind of tree structure/diagram (which can then be integrated into a web page)? 
 
thanks,
 
Joubin...
Don <dlgallop at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Joubin,

First you need to define network availability. In other words, what are you
trying to
measure. In a complicated, distributed network this is not easy. What does
"down"
mean? If one node is down, is the network down? I don't think so. If one
port is down
on a switch is the switch down? This is not an easy problem. I don't know
how
big a network you have but I don't believe that you will be able to automate
it unless
you tried to ping every node in your network every n minutes which your
users will
find unacceptable.

Just my thoughts. We have actually defined what availabiltiy means for our
network.
But this is just our definition.

Good Luck,

don gallop
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joubin Moshrefzadeh" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 4:33 PM
Subject: [rrd-users] Network downtime or uptime


> Ok, here's a question... I've seen all sorts of applications of MRTG and
RRDtool to keep track of traffic patterns, but no mention of actual network
downtime or uptime.
>
> Perhaps this isn't as big a deal to most users, I don't know. But anyway,
my boss would like some stats to show our overall campus networks
health/connectivity rates... anyone tried to gather this kind of stats using
RRDtool and if so, would you like to share your approach?
>
> I have a crude approach:
> 1. do an snmpget on a switch
> 2. based on the response, increment an uptime or downtime counter (both
are DS in an rrd)
> 3. generate graphs showing downtime (percentage) and uptime
>
> your thoughts, comments?
>
> Thanks,
> Joubin
>
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