NMS Devices

The Devices page in the Network Monitoring System (NMS) section of the Kentik portal is covered in the following topics:

The NMS Devices page lists all devices currently being monitored by Kentik NMS.

Note: The following articles provide information about other aspects of Kentik's Network Monitoring System:
- NMS Overview
- Kentik NMS Agent
- NMS Setup
- NMS Dashboard
- Metrics Explorer
- NMS Interfaces
- Query Assistant

 

About NMS Devices

Purpose: See and manage all of your NMS devices.
Benefits: - Get a centralized view of all NMS devices.
- See what's important to you by filtering and customizing columns.
- Speed troubleshooting by seeing key metrics.
Use Cases: - Monitor the health and status of all your NMS devices.
- Diagnose issues by analyzing device metrics.
Relevant Roles: Network Engineer

NMS devices are devices whose data in areas such as status, traffic, and utilization is collected by the Kentik NMS Agent, using SNMP or Streaming Telemetry, and passed to Kentik NMS for display and querying in portal modules such as the Network Monitoring System page and the Metrics Explorer. NMS devices are managed from the NMS Devices page.

 

NMS Devices Page

The NMS Devices page is reached from the main navbar by clicking Devices under Network Monitoring System. The page lists all of your organization's devices that are monitored by Kentik NMS. The list is a customizable table that can include information ranging from status and utilization to make and model.

NMS Devices UI

The NMS Devices page includes the following main UI elements:

  • Breadcrumbs (on SubNav): An indicator of your current location within the Kentik portal.
  • Actions (on SubNav): A drop-down menu from which you can choose to export the view or go to Metrics Explorer:
    - Export: Export the Device list as tabular data in CSV format. A notification appears when the CSV file is ready to download.
    - View in Metrics Explorer: A link to the NMS Metrics Explorer page, where the Query sidebar will be set to show the availability of your devices (up to 1000).
  • Discover Devices: A button that takes you to the NMS Setup page, where you can define which devices are available for NMS monitoring.
  • Filters (filter icon): A button that toggles visibility of the Filters pane. Hiding the pane does not change the currently set filters.
  • Group By: A drop-down from which you can choose to group the rows of the Device list by category (see Device List Grouping).
  • Search: A field that shows lozenges for the currently set filters and also enables you to enter text. The Device list will be filtered to show only rows that match the filters and also contain the entered text. Click the X at the right to clear any text from the field.
  • Device List: A table listing your organization’s NMS devices (see NMS Device List).
  • Filters pane: A set of controls that enable you to filter the device list (see NMS Device List Filters).

Device List Grouping

The Group By drop-down enables you to group the rows of the Device list based on one of the following categories:

  • None: The devices are not grouped.
  • Status: The devices are grouped by their status.
  • Site: The devices are grouped by their site.
  • Location: The devices are grouped by their location.

Unless the selected category is None, a group will consist of all device rows that share a common instance of the selected grouping category, e.g. if the category is Site then all devices in the same site. The rows in each group will be preceded by a heading row, and clicking the table's column headings will sort the rows within each group rather sorting across the entire table.

 

NMS Device List

The Device list is covered in the following topics:

 
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About the NMS Device List

The Device list is a filterable table that shows information about the listed devices. Each row of the list represents one device and shows that device's values for each of the table's columns (see NMS Device List Columns). For additional details about a device, click the device's name to go to its NMS Device Details Page.

You can change the sort order of the list by clicking on the heading of the column you'd like to sort by. Click the resulting blue up or down arrow to choose the sort direction (ascending or descending). In the bottom right corner, you can see how many devices are currently listed.

 
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NMS Device List Columns

The columns displayed in the Device list are chosen in a Customize Columns popup. A maximum of 12 columns may be visible at once. The following columns are available:

  • ID: The device's Kentik-assigned device ID.
  • Status: A set of lozenges indicating the status of the device:
    - Up: Indicates the device is intended to be operational.
    - Down: Indicates the device is intentionally not operational.
  • Name: The device’s name as specified when the device was registered or edited. The name is a link to the details page for the device (see NMS Device Details Page).
  • IP Address: The IP address(es) from which the device sends data to Kentik.
  • Location: The data center where the device is located.
  • Site: The site where the device is located.
  • Object ID: The globally unique identifier used in SNMP.
  • Description: The device’s description string.
  • CPU: The device’s CPU utilization.
  • MEM: The device’s memory utilization.
  • Vendor: The device’s manufacturer.
  • Model: The device’s model number.
  • Product Name: The device’s product name.
  • OS Name: The operating system the device runs on.
  • OS Version: The version number of device’s operating system.
  • Serial Number: The device’s serial number.

Customize Columns

To choose which of the available columns (up to 12) are shown in the table, and in what order:

  1. Click the Customize button at the upper right of the list.
  2. In the resulting Customize Columns popup, use the checkboxes to select or deselect columns.
  3. Use the handle at the left of any column to drag it into the desired order.
  4. Click anywhere outside the popup to close it. The list will be updated to reflect your column selections.
 
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NMS Device List Filters

The Filters pane to the left of the Device list includes a set of filters that you can use to narrow the devices that appear in the list:

  • Clear all (present only when one or more filters are specified): Clears all filters.
  • Status: Checkboxes that filter for devices with a specified status.
  • Site: A field that, when clicked, drops down a list from which you can choose one or more sites. The drop-down includes a filter field into which you can enter text to narrow the listed sites, which can then be chosen by clicking.
    - Each selected site will appear as a lozenge in the Site field, and the Device list will be filtered to those sites.
    - To add another site, click in the field again.
    - To remove a site, click the X at the right of its lozenge in the Site field.
  • Location: Checkboxes that filter for devices at a specified SNMP location.
  • Vendor: Checkboxes that filter for devices from a specified vendor.
  • Model: Checkboxes that filter for a specific device model.

When a filter is applied in a given category, that category is represented in the Search field (see NMS Devices UI) as a single lozenge. You can remove a filter individually by unchecking it in the Filters pane, or remove all filters in the category by clicking the X at the right of the category's lozenge in the Search field.

Filter Application Rules

Kentik applies the following rules to filter categories and criteria:

  • Criteria are ORed (match any) within categories and ANDed (match all) between categories.
  • When criteria are selected in more than one category, an interface is displayed only if it matches at least one of the selected criteria in all of the categories with criteria selected.
  • When no criteria are selected for a category, the interface may match any of the category’s listed criteria.
 

NMS Device Details Page

The Device Details page, reached by clicking the device's name in the NMS Device List, provides detailed information about an individual device. The page is covered in the following topics:

An NMS Device Details page provides information about an individual device.
 
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NMS Device Details UI

The Device Details page contains the following UI elements:

  • Breadcrumbs (on SubNav): An indicator of the current device you are viewing. Click on the Devices breadcrumb to go back to the Devices page.
  • Actions (on SubNav): A drop-down menu from which you can choose a tab from which to export data as a CSV file (see Device Details Actions).
  • Name: The device’s name.
  • IP: The device’s IP address.
  • Status: A lozenge showing the current status of the device.
  • Uptime: A graph showing the device's uptime information over a time range:
    - Time range: A drop-down from which you can choose the time range shown by the graph.
    - Percent: An indicator stating the device's uptime percentage over the specified time range.
    - Graph: A set of segments that are colored green for uptime and gray for downtime. Hover over a segment to open a popup giving the device's status at the segment's timestamp.
  • Manufacturer: The logo of the device’s manufacturer.
  • Tabs: A set of tabs that each present details related to the device (see NMS Device Details Tabs).

Device Details Actions

The Actions drop-down on the SubNav enables you to choose from the following actions:

  • Interfaces: Export the Interfaces tab as a data table (CSV) covering the page’s table.
  • Components: Export the Components tab as a data table (CSV) covering the page’s table.
  • BGP Neighbors: Export the BGP Neighbors tab as a data table (CSV) covering the page’s table.
 
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NMS Device Details Tabs

The following tabs are used to present NMS information about a given device:

  • Overview: The Details Overview Tab shows general information and visualizations for the device.
  • Traffic: The Details Traffic Tab provides a high-level overview of the traffic on your device.
  • Interfaces: The Details Interfaces Tab shows a table giving information about each interface associated with the device. A counter next to the tab name displays the number of associated interfaces.
  • Components: The Details Components Tab shows a table giving information about each component on the device. A counter next to the tab name displays the number of components.
  • BGP Neighbors: The Details BGP Neighbors Tab shows a table giving information about each BGP neighbor associated with the device. A counter next to the tab name displays the number of BGP neighbors for the device.
  • IS-IS: The Details IS-IS Tab is present when the router is running the "Intermediate System to Intermediate System" (IS-IS) protocol. The tab lists all of the neighbor routers and the state of those neighbor relationships.
 

Details Overview Tab

The Overview tab of the details page for NMS devices is covered in the following topics:

 
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About Overview Details

The Overview tab contains general information as well as six different visualizations that focus on a specific aspect of your device. Each visualization is generated by its respective query and contains a graph displaying the query results (see NMS Device Overview Charts).

The general information section in the Overview tab contains the following device details:

 
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NMS Device Details

The Details pane contains the following information:

  • Manufacturer: The device’s manufacturer.
  • Model: The device’s model number.
  • Serial Number: The device’s serial number.
  • IP Address: The IP address(es) from which the device sends data to Kentik.
  • Boot Time: The time since the device was last initialized.
  • Location: The data center where the device is located.
  • OID: The device’s Object Identifier.
  • System Description: The device’s system description.
  • OS Name: The operating system the device runs on.
  • OS Version: The version number of device’s operating system.
  • Expand: A button to expand or collapse the pane.
 
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NMS Device Capabilities

The Capabilities pane contains the following information:

  • Flow: Indicates whether flow is enabled on the device.
  • SNMP: Indicates whether SNMP is enabled on the device.
  • BGP: Indicates whether BGP is enabled on the device.
  • ST: indicated whether Streaming Telemetry is enabled on the device.
  • Expand: A button to expand or collapse the pane.
 
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NMS Device OSPF States

The OSPF States pane contains the following information:

  • Router ID: The ID of the router.
  • ABR: Indicates whether the router is an Area Border Router.
  • ASBR: Indicates whether the router is an Autonomous System Boundary Router.
  • # of Interfaces: The number of interfaces associated with the device.
  • # of Neighbors: The number of neighbors associated with the device.
  • Expand: A button to expand or collapse the pane.
 
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NMS Device LLDP States

The LLDP States pane contains the following information:

  • Chassis ID Type: The device’s chassis identifier type.
  • Chassis ID: The device’s chassis identifier.
  • System Name: The device’s user-friendly name.
  • Expand: A button to expand or collapse the pane.
 
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NMS Device Routing

The Routing pane contains the following information:

  • BGP Local AS: The AS of the local device.
  • BGP Router ID: The ID of the BGP router.
  • BGP Neighbors: The number of BGP neighbors associated with the device.
 
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NMS Device Overview Charts

The Overview tab displays visualizations that focus on different aspects of your device. It contains the following graphs:

  • Highest Inbound Utilization: Metrics for the highest inbound utilization from the device’s interfaces.
  • Highest Outbound Utilization: Metrics for the highest outbound utilization from the device’s interfaces.
  • CPU: Metrics for CPU utilization.
  • Memory: Metrics for memory utilization.
  • BGP Prefixes Sent: Metrics for the number of prefixes sent.
  • Temperature: Metrics for the temperature of the device.
 

Details Traffic Tab

The Traffic tab provides a high-level overview of the traffic on your device. The tab mirrors the UI elements from the Traffic Tab of the details page for an individual device in the Kentik portal's Network Explorer module:

  • Parameter controls: Set the parameters of the query whose results are displayed in the page's graph and table (see Parameter Controls).
  • Traffic tab graph: Displays visualizations of the results returned from the query specified with the Parameter Controls (see Traffic Tab Graph).
  • Traffic table: A tabbed table (see Traffic Tab Table) in which each tab displays a top-X table corresponding to a dimension. The queries that return results for each tab are affected by the parameter controls.
 

Details Interfaces Tab

The Interfaces tab mirrors NMS Interfaces and shows a filterable list of interfaces associated with the device.

 

Details Components Tab

The Components tab of the details page for NMS devices is covered in the following topics:

 
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About Components Details

The Components tab features a table showing details about the physical components that make up the device. Each row of the list represents one component and shows its values for each of the table's columns (see Components List Columns). You can also view additional details about the component by clicking on its row to open the Component Details Drawer.

The Components tab contains the following UI elements:

  • Filters (filter icon): A button that toggles the Filters pane.
  • Group By: A drop-down from which you can choose how to group the components in the list. This operation of this control is identical to that of the Group By drop-down described in Device List Grouping.
  • Search: A field that shows lozenges for the currently set filters and also enables you to enter text. The Components list will be filtered to show only rows that contain the entered current filters and the entered text. Click the X at the right to clear any text from the field.
  • Components List: A table listing the components of your organization’s NMS-monitored devices.
  • Filters pane: A set of controls that enable you to filter the device list (see Components List Filters).
 
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Components List Columns

The columns displayed in the Components list are chosen in a Customize Columns popup. A maximum of 12 columns may be visible at once. The following columns are available:

  • ID: The component’s Kentik-assigned device ID.
  • Status: A set of lozenges indicating the OperStatus of the component.
  • Name: The component’s type and name.
  • Description: The component’s description string.
  • Hardware Version: The component’s hardware version.
  • Firmware Version: The component’s firmware version.
  • Software Version: The component’s software version.
  • Manufacturer: The component’s manufacturer.
  • Model: The component’s model number.
  • Serial #: The component’s serial number.
 
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Components List Filters

The Filters pane to the left of the components list includes a set of filters that you can use to narrow the components that appear in the list:

  • Type: Checkboxes that include only components of a specified type.
  • OperStatus: Checkboxes that include only components of a specified operation status.
 
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Component Details Drawer

The component Details drawer slides out from the right of the page when you click on the component’s row in the list. The drawer contains the following elements:

  • Close: An X button at the upper right to close the pane.
  • Type: The component’s type (e.g. CPU, chassis, etc.).
  • Name: The component’s name.
  • OperStatus: A lozenge indicating the operation status of the device.
  • Details: Information on the component found in Components List Columns.
  • Metrics charts: Collapsible panes displaying different metrics in graph view (see Component Metrics Charts).

Component Metrics Charts

The charts in the collapsible panes of the Details drawer are visualizations of query results. The charts included in the drawer depend on the component type. Each pane contains the following UI elements:

  • Expand: An icon that opens the chart in popup view.
  • Graph: Hover anywhere over the chart to view a popup giving the data at the timestamp.

The following visualizations may be included in these panes:

  • CPU Utilization: Metrics for CPU utilization.
  • Memory Utilization: Metrics for MEM utilization.
  • Temperature: Metrics for temperature.
 

Details BGP Neighbors Tab

The BGP Neighbors tab of the details page for NMS devices is covered in the following topics:

 
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About BGP Neighbors Details

The BGP Neighbors tab features a table showing details about the peering neighbors of the device. Each row of the list represents one neighbor and shows the peers values for each of the table's columns (see BGP Neighbors List Columns). You can also view additional details about the neighbor by clicking on its row to open the BGP Neighbors Details Drawer.

The BGP Neighbors tab contains the following UI elements:

  • Filters (filter icon): A button that toggles the Filters pane.
  • Search: A field that shows lozenges for the currently set filters and also enables you to enter text. The BGP Neighbors list will be filtered to show only rows that contain the current filters and entered text. Click the X at the right to clear any text from the field.
  • BGP Neighbors List: A table listing your organization’s NMS interfaces.
  • Filters pane: A set of controls that enable you to filter the BGP Neighbors list (see BGP Neighbors List Filters).
 
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BGP Neighbors List Columns

The columns displayed in the BGP neighbors list depend on the settings in the Customize Columns popup (see Customize Columns). A maximum of 12 columns may be visible at once. The following columns are available:

  • Session: The Session State of the BGP connection.
  • Peer AS: The AS of a neighboring or peer router with which the network device is forming a BGP session.
  • Neighbor IP: The IP address of the BGP peer.
  • Local AS: The AS of the network device.
  • Prefixes Sent: The number of prefixes sent to that BGP peer.
  • Prefixes Received: The number of prefixes received from that BGP peer.
  • Network Instance:
  • Hold time: Indicates (in seconds) how long the device will wait before declaring the connection to the peer lost.
  • Keepalive: Indicates (in seconds) the frequency at which keepalive messages are sent to the BGP peer.
  • Connect Retry: Indicates (in seconds) how long the device waits before initiating a new connection attempt.
  • Local IP: The IP address used by the device to establish a connection.
  • Local Port: The port number used be the device.
  • Remote IP: The IP address of the BGP peer.
  • Remote IP Type: The type of IP address used by the BGP Peer.

Session State

The following session states indicate the progress and health of a BGP session:

  • Idle: The initial state of a BGP connection.
  • Connect: The device is waiting for its connection to complete.
  • Active: The device was unsuccessful in establishing a connection. It will continue to retry the connection.
  • Open Sent: The device has sent a message and is waiting from its peer.
  • Open Confirm: The device has received a message and is now waiting for its peer.
  • Established: The BGP peering session is established and routing information is shared.
 
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BGP Neighbors List Filters

The Filters pane to the left of the components list includes a set of filters that you can use to narrow the BGP neighbors that appear in the list:

  • Session State: Checkboxes that include only neighbors with a specified connection state.
  • Local AS: Checkboxes that include only neighbors with a specified local AS.
  • Peer AS: Checkboxes that include only neighbors with a specified peer AS.
 
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BGP Neighbors Details Drawer

The BGP neighbors Details drawer slides out from the right of the page when you click on the neighbor’s row in the list. The drawer contains the following elements:

  • Close: An X button on the upper right to close the pane.
  • Name: The peer AS of the BGP neighbor.
  • Session State: A lozenge indicating the state of the BGP connection.
  • Session Details: A collapsible pane displaying the BGP neighbor details found in BGP Neighbors List Columns.
  • Metrics charts: Collapsible panes displaying different metrics in graph view (see BGP Neighbors Metrics Charts).

BGP Neighbors Metrics Charts

The charts in the collapsible panes of the Details drawer are visualizations of query results. Each pane contains the following UI elements:

  • View in Metrics Explorer: A button that takes you to the Metrics Explorer, where the Query sidebar will be set to show the query.
  • Graph: Hover anywhere over the chart to view a popup giving the data at the timestamp.

The BGP Neighbors metric visualizations contain the following graphs:

  • Session State: Metrics for session state.
  • Prefixes Received: Metrics for prefixes received.
  • Prefixes Sent: Metrics for prefixes sent.
  • Messages In: Metrics for messages in.
  • Messages Out: Metrics for messages out.
 

Details IS-IS Tab

The IS-IS tab is present when the router is running the "Intermediate System to Intermediate System" (IS-IS) protocol. The tab lists all of the neighbor routers and the state of those neighbor relationships.

More coming soon…

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