Brocade Weathermap

[ajeffco]

Hi All,

New to cacti, so bear with me (what a great tool though).

Has anyone used weathermap on Brocade Fiber Channel switches using the Brocade Templates found elsewhere in these forums?

I've created the map no problem, but now I would like to start putting Link Bandwidth usage into the map also.

I see where I can specify a DS in the link TARGET option, but there is no DS for throughput in the rrd, it's a CDEF (not sure what that is exactly yet beyond some math ).

I also could write something external to do the same thing in a tab delimited file, but I was hoping to keep it all "internal to cacti".

Thanks,

Al

[Howie]

Has anyone used weathermap on Brocade Fiber Channel switches using the Brocade Templates found elsewhere in these forums?

I've created the map no problem, but now I would like to start putting Link Bandwidth usage into the map also.

I see where I can specify a DS in the link TARGET option, but there is no DS for throughput in the rrd, it's a CDEF (not sure what that is exactly yet beyond some math ).

A CDEF is indeed a calculated value. Unfortunately for you, Weathermap can't use those. That said, the "throughput" in those templates doesn't have a direction as far as I can see, so it doesn't make much sense for a map, either. If you don't mind settling for a %age utilisation per port, you could use the words transferred instead, since that does have a in/out value, and it is a real DS as far as I can see. We do have a couple of Brocades here, although I've never tried to monitor them. Maybe it'd be worth playing with...

So if percentages are OK, you would use those txWords rxWords as the output and input DS names respectively, then set the BANDWIDTH for the link to be (1024*1024*1024)/(32*8) = 4M

That's 1 Gigabit, divided by 32 for the bits in the word, and 8 because weathermap will assume it's a byte counter and multiply by 8 as it reads it. Obviously 8M or 16M for 2G or 4G FC ports. It assumes byte counters because that's what all standard SNMP interface counters are.

I also could write something external to do the same thing in a tab delimited file, but I was hoping to keep it all "internal to cacti".

If you need to see bits/sec, then at the moment, you would need to produce that text file. The next release of Weathermap has a little more flexibility here, but you'd still need to write a little code to get what you need.

[ajeffco]

A CDEF is indeed a calculated value. Unfortunately for you, Weathermap can't use those.

Thanks for the info... That is unfortunate.

So if percentages are OK, you would use those txWords rxWords as the output and input DS names respectively, then set the BANDWIDTH for the link to be (1024*1024*1024)/(32*8) = 4M

Percentages are fine. But, I'm currently on wanting to put only switches and ISL's on the map, so I'm wondering if I use the txWords from each switch, would that work. You wouldn't see receive, but it would be the amount the other side of the link is sending, and would correspond visually with the arrows on the map.

That's 1 Gigabit, divided by 32 for the bits in the word, and 8 because weathermap will assume it's a byte counter and multiply by 8 as it reads it. Obviously 8M or 16M for 2G or 4G FC ports. It assumes byte counters because that's what all standard SNMP interface counters are.

Found this in the thread with the Brocade templates, page 2:

After reading few RFC on FC protocol I found that the FC Word is a 4 character of 8 bit so 32bit but, the FC protocol encapsulate those character into a 10bit format so on the pipe, a 32bit data is 40bit.

Not sure how this will affect the calculation for bandwidth. Math certainly is not my strong point

[ajeffco]

This works fine with the Brocade switches... It wasn't as hard as I figured it would be. Thanks Howie, the BANDWIDTH was the tipoff. I can't put the throughput on the links, because it comes out at twice the rate it is supposed to be. However, by modifying the bandwidth, and selecting rxwords and txwords, I can get the percentage of utilization perfectly. The only thing is that you can't put 256M for a 2GB link, you have to put 200 to get the correct utilization, which makes sense.

Next step is to put icons rather than boxes... Is there a way to name a link? (haven't looked in the dox yet, but I will).

Thanks very much for the help.

Al

[Howie]

This works fine with the Brocade switches... It wasn't as hard as I figured it would be. Thanks Howie, the BANDWIDTH was the tipoff. I can't put the throughput on the links, because it comes out at twice the rate it is supposed to be. However, by modifying the bandwidth, and selecting rxwords and txwords, I can get the percentage of utilization perfectly. The only thing is that you can't put 256M for a 2GB link, you have to put 200 to get the correct utilization, which makes sense.

Ah cool. That looks good.

Next step is to put icons rather than boxes... Is there a way to name a link? (haven't looked in the dox yet, but I will).

Well, there is - the text after the LINK keyword - but it only appears in the popup graph at the moment. In 0.9 there is a LINKCOMMENT, that appears along the arrow, which is intended for things like port numbers, circuit references and so on. 0.9 is (still) work-in-progress.

[Perseus]

This works fine with the Brocade switches... It wasn't as hard as I figured it would be. Thanks Howie, the BANDWIDTH was the tipoff. I can't put the throughput on the links, because it comes out at twice the rate it is supposed to be. However, by modifying the bandwidth, and selecting rxwords and txwords, I can get the percentage of utilization perfectly. The only thing is that you can't put 256M for a 2GB link, you have to put 200 to get the correct utilization, which makes sense.

Next step is to put icons rather than boxes... Is there a way to name a link? (haven't looked in the dox yet, but I will).

Thanks very much for the help.

Al

Can you give a full config sample for a link?