Network Switch / Router Monitoring Wizard

[OptimusB]

I am using the Network Switch / Router Monitoring Wizard to discover network ports on devices such as Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects. This is great as it captures all the network ports as well as port channels and vNICs etc. However, there are just so many ports that it picks up. I usually use the port name option as this makes more sense over port numbers.

One useful option would be able to either filter by port names and port. Reason being, I might only be interested in vNICs or the port channels. Instead of doing an uncheck and scrolling and checking all relevant ports, it will definitely make it easier to select the ports I want to monitor.

Second, there's a big change of port names being duplicates. If the duplicate names can either append a number or use the port info to help differentiate the ports, this would be huge. As right now, if there are duplicate port names, only one port will show as a result. (I am assuming it overwrites the configuration since the name is the same)

I am having similar challenges with other network gear as well in terms of duplicate port names as well as having to go through all discovered ports.

Anyone else have this challenge?

[jdalrymple]

One useful option would be able to either filter by port names and port. Reason being, I might only be interested in vNICs or the port channels. Instead of doing an uncheck and scrolling and checking all relevant ports, it will definitely make it easier to select the ports I want to monitor.

Best we could do is file a feature request. I assume you mean within the wizard - not in the service UI. Obviously the option is already there in the UI.

Second, there's a big change of port names being duplicates. If the duplicate names can either append a number or use the port info to help differentiate the ports, this would be huge. As right now, if there are duplicate port names, only one port will show as a result. (I am assuming it overwrites the configuration since the name is the same)

Would that really help that much? All we could do is add an arbitrary index, that wouldn't map back to your switch in any sensible fashion.

[OptimusB]

Feature request would be great for point 1. Having to go through a 96 port fabric interconnect in a Cisco UCS domain is a bit of a pain. I am not sure what others out there are doing. But unchecking or checking all these ports manually doesn't seem to make sense. Also when you have a lot of these to go through.

In our case, port name is more valuable, as it is providing a tie in to what it could be connected to or configured as. For example we have 4 network ports in a port channel named "port-channel 1". The network wizard sees each of these 4 ports but the label shows up as "port-channel 1" for a 4 ports. So if I don't modify the name before committing to the wizard, I will have only one single "port-channel 1" showing in services. Hence I suggest adding the port number to the end of the name to handle duplicates. So it would show up with 4 services and each will be names something like "port-channel 1 ethernet 1/1", "port-channel 1 ethernet 1/2", etc.

[jdalrymple]

Feature request would be great for point 1. Having to go through a 96 port fabric interconnect in a Cisco UCS domain is a bit of a pain. I am not sure what others out there are doing. But unchecking or checking all these ports manually doesn't seem to make sense. Also when you have a lot of these to go through.

In our case, port name is more valuable, as it is providing a tie in to what it could be connected to or configured as. For example we have 4 network ports in a port channel named "port-channel 1". The network wizard sees each of these 4 ports but the label shows up as "port-channel 1" for a 4 ports. So if I don't modify the name before committing to the wizard, I will have only one single "port-channel 1" showing in services. Hence I suggest adding the port number to the end of the name to handle duplicates. So it would show up with 4 services and each will be names something like "port-channel 1 ethernet 1/1", "port-channel 1 ethernet 1/2", etc.

I see, it's not so much a matter of identification as much as a matter of preventing the services from aggregating into 1. Sorry, I haven't run into that situation in any of my labs.

I've created one feature request in that encompasses both issues. Going to go ahead and lock this up unless you have anything to add.

[OptimusB]

Thank you.