Network Management with WebNM
By Duncan Bond
WebNM is a powerful new tool for network capacity planning, proactive alerting,
Service Level Agreement (SLA) management, and network performance reporting. It is
available to all State Wide Area Network (WAN) users; and displays colorful graphs (green
is good, red indicates a device down, and violet indicates a service down), as it
continuously monitors the status of every device on the WAN.
What does this mean? When any device on the network fails to respond to four
consecutive polls, an alarm is sounded in the Network Services Division (NSD). The alarm
is an obnoxious continuous siren that cannot be ignored! Better yet, when the threshold
breaches are fully implemented, NSD staff will be e-mailed any time any WAN link is
experiencing errors, enabling them to fix most developing circuit problems before you
notice any degradation in performance and before the alarm sounds!
WebNM is a Web-based product HTTP://141.114.172.244:8001
- whenever prompted for a userid and password, use "guest" for both). A
product of Somix Technologies, WebNM adds flexible SNMP (simple network management
protocol) and RMON (remote monitor) graphing capabilities to the existing What’s Up
Gold (WUG) functionality that NSD has used for years. This combination of version 5 WUG
and WebNM provides users throughout state government with highly graphic, point-and-click
access to key performance indicators for components of the State’s Wide Area Network
(WAN) and for critical file servers. It also provides a central repository for
documentation such as physical interconnections, device-specific firmware release level,
hardware description, and Bell Atlantic circuit numbers.
Under the heading "WebNM Network Monitoring", WebNM presents a listing of
available graphs/maps which contain color-coded columns of information. The first column
is a hot-linked title and clicking on it will download the appropriate map. The second
column is colored green, and gives the total count of "Up" items for each map.
This "Up" status means that the last poll was answered (each device is polled
once per minute. Polling means the WebNM/WUG server says "are you there" to each
configured device or service every minute. If the device responds "I’m
here" then the server puts the device in the "up" status.) If a
device misses one poll, it will turn yellow; two polls missed will be indicated in light
blue; three missed polls is reported in violet; and four or more polls - RED.
The map shown below is entitled "Biddeford and Southern Maine." It
illustrates all area devices and their interconnections. The color of the titled icon for
each device (such as Sanford_DOL) reflects its current status. Selecting "Top
view" from the menu will return the browser to the initial listing of maps.
"Summary view" will list the current map’s icons in a listing with a
statistical summary of polling data for each icon.
Clicking on Sanford_DOL will show a screen of information specific to that device. At
the bottom of the screen will be a hyperlink for "VITAL SIGNS", which can
display two graphs - one for CPU utilization for the last 28 hours, and the other for
memory utilization. Since the scales for these graphs are dynamic, users must click on
either graph to display four more maps which illustrate percentage of uptime for the day,
week, month, and year with numeric peaks and averages annotated. These maps provide a
historical context for interpretation of the current day’s data, as well as a visual
indication of any significant trends.
In the "map view" for each titled icon, there is a smaller untitled icon
(with interlaced blue and red lightning bolts). Clicking on this icon will show graphs for
link-specific performance indicators. For WAN links, this will always include utilization
(see example below), near-end and far-end errors. Hopefully, the error graphs will be
boring: zero errors indicate a healthy circuit. These graphs also have the historical
context statistics available. The performance indicators will vary depending on the type
of equipment accessed. For example, file servers will have graphs pertaining to free
memory, CPU and disk utilization. As long as an SNMP variable exists in the device, WebNM
can graph its data. Anyone using the State’s WAN is welcome to view all the maps,
which can be printed locally if desired.
There are other features in the system. For example, when any device on the network
fails to respond for four consecutive polls, an alarm is sounded in the NSD area. Further,
any device can be independently configured for addition alerting including alpha paging,
digital paging and e-mail in any combination. While not fully implemented yet, NSD plans
to implement off-hours alerting for all critical sites.
WebNM/WUG will generate a number of reports, including a daily down-time report which
will be copied to the BIS Help Desk. This report will provide down-time information for
the last business day, along with devices currently down. An inventory report shows all
the WAN devices in the network, along with the version of operating system in each device.
This information is extracted from the devices on an automated schedule, and provides
current vital data about the equipment. In addition, each of the previously discussed maps
also function as a capacity planning report. Events that may affect performance of the
system can be predicted by the curve on the graph.
NSD will be installing RMON probes at critical points in the network to provide
technical network data on 1) which devices consume significant bandwidth, and 2) what
protocols are being used and to what extent. This, and additional data, will enable proper
sizing and management of the WAN. The RMON probe systems will also contain network
analyzer software that can be accessed across the WAN using the WebNM remote console
feature. This feature, which requires an agent loaded on the far end only, allows any
browser to access the remote system. The network analyzer software will allow technicians
to perform packet-level analysis across the WAN, on any WAN port on the State’s
Nortel ATM switches. In short, NSD can do high and low level analyses on all major parts
of the network without traveling to the remote site.
In summary, WebNM is a Web-based collection of tools that enables the State’s
computing community to always know the current condition of critical components of the
State’s network infrastructure!
Questions? Comments? Contact Duncan Bond duncan.bond@state.me.us.
Duncan is a network analyst in the NSD of the Bureau of Information Services who has
worked for BIS for17 years.
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