Port Statistics Test
Ports are very important component of the switch to send and receive data through the network. Connections to the target switch are established through the ports. If one or more ports are down/non-operational for a brief period, all connections to the target switch will get suspended. It is hence imperative that the administrators be promptly alerted when the ports start behaving abnormally so that, remedial measures can be initiated instantaneously to avoid a prolonged port outage.
This test auto-discovers all the ports of the target Alcatel-Lucent switch, and reports statistics like SNMP errors, network I/O utilization etc. for each port. Using this test, administrators can identify if there is a port malfunction or if there is a problem with incoming or outgoing data through the port. By taking corrective actions, administrators can help in avoiding problems from cascading through the network.
Target of the test : An Alcatel-Lucent Switch
Agent deploying the test : An external agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for each port on the switch to be monitored.
Parameter | Description |
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Test Period |
How often should the test be executed. |
Host |
The IP address of the target server that is being monitored. |
SNMPPort |
The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; |
Data Over TCP |
By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No. |
Timeout |
Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds. |
SNMPVersion |
By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list. |
Context |
This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box. By default, this parameter is set to none. |
Username |
This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. |
Authpass |
Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3. |
Confirm Password |
Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here. |
AuthType |
This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:
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EncryptFlag |
This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. |
EncryptType |
If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:
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EncryptPassword |
Specify the encryption password here. |
Confirm Password |
Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here. |
EngineID |
This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No. |
Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation | ||||||||
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Status |
Indicates the current status of this port. |
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The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalent are mentioned in the table below:
Note: By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of this fan. The graph of this measure, however, represents the status of the fan using the numeric equivalents only. |
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Current CRC errors |
Indicates the current number of CRC errors reported on this port. |
Errors |
A high number of CRC errors are usually the result of collisions or a station transmitting bad data or malfunctioning Ethernet device |
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Current link errors |
Indicates the current number of link errors reported on this port. |
Errors |
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Total link errors |
Indicates the total number of link errors reported on this port. |
Errors |
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Input/Output traffic |
Indicates the percentage of I/O traffic handled through this port. |
Percent |
Understanding the percentage usage helps understands the load on a particular port. |