eG Administration 
 

Configuring Measures for an Snmp Test

An Snmp test facilitates the monitoring of a wide range of network devices such as routers, switches, hubs, printers etc. 

The major step in incorporating a new Snmp test into the eG system is to inform the eG system about the number and types of measurements that will be made by the test. This page will enable the administrator to configure the new test and will appear when the Configure button against the test in the list of tests page, is clicked. The details of the new measurements have to be provided in this page.

  • The Measure index determines the order in which the measures are to be displayed in the monitor console. For example, if you select 1 as the Measure index then the corresponding measure will appear first in the list of measures displayed in the monitor console. Note that the same Measure index should not be assigned to two different measures of a particular test.

  • The Measure name field indicates the name of the measurement (this will be displayed in the eG monitor interface).

  • The Database column size field indicates the size of each database record corresponding to a measurement value. For example, Number(7,4) indicates that the output of the measurement will be a number in the range 0 to 100, with the fractional value being limited to four decimal places.

  • The Unit (whether %, seconds, requests/sec, etc.) specifies the unit in which the measurement's value is reported. The required unit can be selected from the options available in the list box.

  • In addition to the above, this test type requests the specification of a Process method. By selecting an option from the Process method list box, you can indicate the processing that must be performed on the script / batch file's output before passing the results to the eG agent. The options offered by this list box are:

Option

Information
UNALTERED

Selecting this option will ensure that no additional information is displayed along with the specified measure in the monitor console. In other words, the Current Value of the measure is displayed.
PERCENT_INCREASE

Selecting this option will display the percentage by which the current value of the measure exceeds its previous value (i.e. the value of the measure during the previous test execution). While an increase displays a positive value, a decrease will display a negative value. The formula used is:

[(Current Value − Previous Value) / Previous Value] * 100
PERCENT_DECREASE

This option will display the percentage by which the current value of the measure falls below its previous value. While a decrease displays a positive value, an increase will display a negative value.

[(Previous Value − Current Value) / Previous Value] * 100
PERCENT_CHANGE

This displays the percentage change between the current value and the previous value.

ABS[(Current Value − Previous Value) / Previous Value] * 100
RATIO

This displays the ratio of the current value of the measure over its previous value.

(Current Value / Previous Value)
RATE

This displays the result of the following formula:

(Current Value − Previous Value) / Time since the last measurement

DIFFERENCE This displays the absolute value of the difference between the current value and the previous value.

ABS(Current Value − Previous Value)

 
  • By default, UNALTERED is selected as the Process method

  • Sometimes, administrators may want to convert the unit of measurement of a performance metric before displaying the same in the eG monitoring console. For instance, a duration value originally available in ‘milliseconds’ may have to be changed to ‘Secs’ before it is displayed in the console. If you want the unit of the measure being added to be so converted at test run time, then select a Conversion Factor from the list. For example, if a value in ‘milliseconds’ needs to be converted to ‘seconds’, then select /1000 as the conversion factor. By default, 1 is chosen as the Conversion Factor; this implies that, by default, unit conversion does not take place for a new measure at test run time.

    • Note:

    The Conversion Factor list comes with a default set of conversion factors. You can however, override this list by adding more conversion factors. For instance, the default Conversion Factor list does not provide the option to convert Bytes to MB at run time. To include this option in the list, follow the steps below:

    • Edit the eg_ui.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory.
    • To include a new conversion factor, you will have to append an entry of the following format to the [CONVERSION_FACTORS] section of the file:
      DisplayName=Value
    • For instance, to support ‘Bytes to MB’ conversion, append the following entry to the [CONVERSION_FACTORS] section:
      /1048576 (Bytes to MB)=0.00000095367431640625
    • In this case, the DisplayName, /1048576 (Bytes to MB), will be displayed as an option in the Conversion Factor drop-down list. If this option is chosen, then, at test run time, the conversion value of 0.00000095367431640625 will be multiplied with the actual measure value that is reported in Bytes to convert it into MB. Care should be taken while specifying the conversion value, as incorrect values will result in wrong measures being reported by the test.
    • Once the new entry is appended to the [CONVERSION_FACTORS] section, save the file.
    • Finally, restart the manager.

    Once this is done, you will find the string /1048576 (Bytes to MB) appear as an option in the Conversion Factor list.

  • The alarm window in the eG monitor interface displays all the currently outstanding alarms. Along with each alarm, the list of tests corresponding to the alarms and a brief description of the problem are displayed. For example, a disk space alarm indicates that the test reporting the problem is DiskSpace Test and the problem description is “High disk utilization {C:}”. The problem description corresponds to the measure - Pct_disk_util- that has violated its thresholds. In this example, the ALARM DISPLAY STRING corresponding to the Pct_disk_util measurement is ‘High disk utilization’. The alarm display string rather than the measurement name is displayed in the alarm window so as to make it easier for IT infrastructure operators to understand and use the eG product suite. When configuring a measurement for a custom test, specify the text string that must be displayed in the eG alarm window when the corresponding measurement violates its threshold.

  • Against the Object OID text box, enter the object id of the specified measure. This object ID can be arrived at in either of the following ways:

    • By manually “walking” the MIB tree of the application or network device of interest

    • By uploading the SNMP MIB file of the application/network device to the eG manager and browsing the MIB tree using the eG administrative interface

    For the manual procedure, refer to the eG Customization Manual. If you do not want to use the manual procedure for deducing the OID, then, you can determine the same quickly and easily using the MIB Browser that is built-into the eG Enterprise system for browsing uploaded MIB files online. To use the MIB browser, do the following:

    • To invoke the SNMP MIB browser while specifying the Object OID of a measure, click on the button near the Object OID text box in this page. The MIB Browser will then appear.

    • To browse the MIB file that was uploaded, first, select it from the MIB Files list in the browser. The MIB Files list contains all MIB files that have been uploaded to the eG manager. If the MIB file that you want to browse is not available in the MIB Files list, then you first need to upload the MIB file to the manager, and then open it using the browser.

    • To upload the MIB file of interest to you, click the Upload MIB button in this page.

    • A pop-up window will then appear. In the File to upload text box in this pop-up, specify the full path to the MIB file to be uploaded. You can also use the Browse button in the pop-up to locate the MIB file.

    • Once the MIB file path is specified, click the Upload button in the pop-up window to upload the specified file to the eG manager.

    • If upload is successful, then the newly uploaded MIB file will automatically appear selected in the MIB Files list in the MIB Browser. Upon selection of the MIB file, the MIB browser automatically constructs a MIB tree using the SNMP MIB object definitions in the file. To determine the OID of a measure measure, drill down the MIB tree by expanding each of the nodes in sequence.

    • Upon selecting the node that reports the value of a measure that is being configured in this page, the MIB browser automatically determines the OID of that node and displays the same against the OID field in the browser. To insert this OID into the Object OID text box in the NEW MEASURE DETAILS page, just click the ok button in the browser.

  • Once the Object OID is specified, click on the Add button in this page to add the measurement.

  • When the measurement is successfully added, a response page indicating the measurement and its details will appear. Previously added measurements can be deleted using the Delete button that would appear beside every measurement being added. Such measurements can also be modified by clicking the Modifybutton beside the measure name. 

The Back button enables the administrator to go back to the previous screen.