DX NetOps Availability Thresholding is unreliable.

Products

• Network Observability

Issue/Introduction

While using DX NetOps Data Aggregator, you may run into a use case where you want to set up thresholding for device availiability. When trying to use the, "Availablilty" Metric Family, you may run into issues where the results become unrealiable. This is because of the nature of the how the, "Availability" Metric family works. 

Environment

Dx NetOps

Cause

The, "Availability" Metric family determines if whether the device is available on the network (up and sysUptime progressing). What it doesn't do is determine whether it can be SNMP polled or not. Data is backfilled when we can't SNMP poll the device for some time. This is what causes Thresholding to be very unreliable. 

Resolution

Set up your Threshold Profiles to use the, "Reachability" Metric Family. Reachability is recomended for Thresholding over "Availability", because the data we store is simple, is the device up or down when we poll it. This will provide accurate metrics for your Thresholding needs.