Steps to enable ICMP Latency Monitoring on a Domain Manager

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

This article explains how to enable ICMP Latency Monitoring in Smarts and how to use the Smarts IP latency monitoring feature.

Environment

Smarts 10.1.X

Resolution

The ICMP latency monitoring feature in Smarts IP provides round-trip times for all polled IP objects in the environment that are monitored by ICMP.  The round-trip time reflects the latency (in milliseconds) that is observed during the last ICMP poll.

ICMP latency monitoring in Smarts IP - SlowResponseTime events

If the round-trip time between the sending of an ICMP request to an IP address and the receiving of the ICMP response from the IP address exceeds a user-defined latency value, but does not exceed a user-defined timeout value, the Smarts IP Availability Manager generates an IP SlowResponseTime event. The Smarts SAM Global Manager or an external subscriber subscribes and presents the IP SlowResponseTime event.

Enabling ICMP latency monitoring in Smarts IP

The ICMP latency monitoring feature is not enabled by default. The ICMP latency monitoring feature is enabled and configured through the Connectivity Polling setting in the Smarts IP Polling and Thresholds console.
You enable and configure the ICMP latency monitoring feature by setting the MaximumLatency parameter to a non-zero value, and by subscribing to the IP::SlowResponseTime event in Smarts SAM or in an external subscriber.

This is done as follows:

1. Set the MaximumLatency parameter to a non-zero number. To do this, open the Smarts IP Polling and Thresholds Console. The Maximum Latency parameter setting is configured under Settings > Connectivity Polling:

2. Subscribe to the IP::SlowResponseTime event in Smarts SAM or in an external subscriber. In some environments such as Smarts SAM 9.2, this subscription is already set up by default.  To validate whether this subscription already exists, do the following:

1. • Open a command prompt and navigate to the BASEDIR of the Smarts SAM installation (such as /opt/InCharge/SAM).

   • Change to the <BASEDIR>/smarts/bin directory

   • Open the dxa-conn-perf.conf configuration file in sm_edit with the following command:
     ./sm_edit conf/ics/dxa-conn-perf.conf

1. • Scroll down to the Performance section and check whether or not the following line exists:
     sub     IP::.*::SlowResponseTime/e

1. • If the above line already exists, no further steps are required. If the above line does not exist, add it to the Performance section, and save and close the dxa-conn-perf.conf configuration file.

   • If you changed the dxa-conn-perf.conf configuration file, restart the SAM server to implement the change.

Additional Information

NOTE1: 
To check the status of polling, execute this command in the command line.
./dmctl -s <InCharge AMPM domain> get ICMP::I-ICMP-IP-<IP address of device> ::RoundTripTime

NOTE2:
To subscribe to the event without changing the above file, execute this command.
./sm_adapter -s <InCharge AMPM Domain> -b localhost:427 --subscribeProp=ICMP::.*::RoundTripTime --output=roundtrip.log --daemon

NOTE3:
If you do not follow these instructions by setting the maximum latency value to something other than zero, you will see this result when you query for this value using DMCTL.
./dmctl -s <InCharge AMPM Domain> get ICMP::I-ICMP-<IP address>160::RoundTripTime

MR-E-NOT_CURRENTLY_MONITORED-Instrumented attribute RoundTripTime is not currently being monitored by accessor; in file "/work/tancurrent/DMT-9.2.0.0/19/smarts/repos/accessors/MR_Accessor.c" at line 951

dmctl -s <InCharge AMPM Domain> get ICMP::I-ICMP-IP-<IP address>.160
Properties of ICMP::I-ICMP-IP-<IP Address>:
Address = <IP Address>
CreationClassName = ICMP
Description =
DisplayClassName = IP
DisplayName = <Host-Name>
DownPollingInterval = 120
IPInstrumentationsReverse = { Router::<HostName>/<IP Address> }
IPStatus = OK
InstrumentationKey = Fault
InstrumentationOK = TRUE
Instruments = IP::IP-<IP Address>
InterfaceAdminStatus = UNKNOWN
InterfaceMode = NORMAL
InterfaceName =
InterfaceOperStatus = UNKNOWN
InterfaceStatus = UNKNOWN
InterfaceType = GENERIC
IsResponsive = TRUE
IsSlowToRespond = FALSE
IsUnresponsive = FALSE
MaxClearDelay = 150
MaxFailureRetryCount = 4
MaxNotificationDelay = 180
MaxSuccessRetryCount = 0
MaximumLatency = 0
MetaMemberOf = { }
MinClearPending = 30
MinNotificationPending = 60
Name = I-ICMP-IP-<IP Address>
Netmask = <Subnet Mask>
NetworkNumber = <Network Number>
RoundTripTime = <unknown>
ServiceName =.219