create weathermap to unmanaged devices

[snacketti81]

Hi

Honestly i am an Cacti newby and the cacti "server"/responsibility is not in my hand but I have been starting to analyze some options.
Therefore sorry for my might be beginner questions.
We have a headquarter and some branch office over the world.
These Branch office are connected over some different ISPs (MPLS, VPLS Solutions). Obviously those ISP devices in between are not in our hand, that means we are not manage those devices but we manage our headquarters and also these branch offices. Is it possible to create a weathermap to unmanaged devices with monitor our traffic in/out from the headquarters to the branch office. I mean that we can see the in/out throughput in a point of view from a graph, without those unmanaged devices in between? I am not interesting to see what the provider is doing with our traffic (I know we can not) but i am interesting to see, do we have the same amount traffic from the Headquarter OUT and IN Branch office.

For example:
OUT Traffic Headquarter - ISP unmanaged ergo blackbox - IN Branch Office
OUT Branch office - ISP unmanaged ergo blackbox- IN Headquarter

Thanks a lot for your support/advice

Best Regards
snacketti81

[Howie]

As long as you have one switch port that links from your managed switch to the ISP device, just treat the ISP device as part of the "wire between sites". So you graph your switches, and use the traffic data for that in Weathermap. Weathermap doesn't actually care where the data comes from, or if the nodes really are connected.

Also, you can draw in links without having to provide data, if it makes the map easier to read, or draw the ISP as a cloud in the middle. There are several ways.

[snacketti81]

As long as you have one switch port that links from your managed switch to the ISP device, just treat the ISP device as part of the "wire between sites". So you graph your switches, and use the traffic data for that in Weathermap. Weathermap doesn't actually care where the data comes from, or if the nodes really are connected.

Also, you can draw in links without having to provide data, if it makes the map easier to read, or draw the ISP as a cloud in the middle. There are several ways.

great! thx a lot for confirming

[netniV]

i am interesting to see, do we have the same amount traffic from the Headquarter OUT and IN Branch office.

For example:
OUT Traffic Headquarter - ISP unmanaged ergo blackbox - IN Branch Office
OUT Branch office - ISP unmanaged ergo blackbox- IN Headquarter

I am pretty certain you will rarely have that matching exactly. You'll probably get close if that connection is only ever used for a private MPLS styled circuit between your two sites via your ISP, but if it is using anything like a public IP IPSEC tunnel, then you'll get probed and all sorts causing variations in traffic levels. You're only likely to get this matching if you are ONLY monitoring the IPSec tunnel not the interface.

[Howie]

Good point! Although if you are monitoring the LAN-side interfaces of the ISP-supplied router, you shouldn't see that trafffic (if they have configured it properly!). You will see variation in the maximum, I guess, because there will be some amount taken up by junk traffic that you can't see.

(years ago, we got a new /20 for a new country POP, and forgot to put in null routes for it. There was a solid > 128kbit/s of random scan traffic until we realised what we'd forgotten - when that was a typical leased line)