Smarts SAM: Can NOTIF handle NAT-translated (NAT-ed) IP addresses?

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Can Smarts Service Assurance Manager (Smarts SAM) NOTIF handle NAT-translated (NAT-ed) IP addresses?
Can Smarts SAM NOTIF handle traps that have had IP addresses translated in Network Address Translation (NAT) process?

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Resolution

Yes, NOTIF can handle NAT-translated (NAT-ed) IP addresses, but only if the required modifications are made to the default Smarts SAM NOTIF functionality. By default, the Notif-trap_mgr_parse.asl only does the following:

1. Receives the incoming trap.
2. Converts the trap to a pipe-separated format.
3. Pushes the pipe separated string to NOTIF.

All other processing for the trap is done by NOTIF.

Therefore, to enable Smarts SAM NOTIF to handle traps that IP addresses which go through the NAT process, you may need to write some of your own custom code. You can try any of the following ways to provide this functionality:

• Use NOTIF to manipulate the fields in the incoming trap to generate events. This can work only if all the details required for the event are part of the incoming trap.
   
• Call a hook script from the NOTIF ECI/NCI. If necessary, EMC Professional Services can be engaged for this coding task
   
• Manually change the ASL code in Notif-trap_mgr_parse.asl to mimic what trap_mgr_parse.asl does. To make this change in Notif-trap_mgr_parse.asl will involve a significant amount of ASL coding.