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Clouds in Network Atlas

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BakerD replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 10:58 AM
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I would like to create an Internet and MPLS cloud on a network map and be able to connect links to them.  Anyone doing this and what sort of object are you putting in the cloud to allow you to link to it?

IE: I want a link from my internet router to an internet cloud.  I want the link to be active and show status etc.  Otherwise I would just draw a line on my background image.  One thought is if my gateway or ISP has an IP that is pingable, I could use that.

On the MPLS one, not sure on that since they are metro/ethernet links.

Just wondering how anyone else was doing this sort of thing?

 

Thanks

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578 Posts
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Answered (Verified) ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 11:52 AM
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Verified by BakerD

Possibly use a cloud icon from Visio in the background image... then drag a Led into the cloud... draw a line between your internet edge device to the led in the cloud.  Then open up your internet edge router on the left hand side.  right click and get properties on the link to the cloud... then drag over the interface on the router that goes to the cloud led so the link will change based on the status of the interface.  Then the line to the cloud will change color when the internet link is down.

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

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578 Posts
Points 3,349
Answered (Verified) ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 2:21 PM
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Verified by BakerD

You need to do the right click on the link to open properties on it... then you can find the interface on your router on the left side of Network Atlas window and drag it over and drop onto the inteface properties window you have open.  This makes the link change to red when your internet router interface is down.

You can use any of the orion or your custom properties on mouse overs on you map for interfaces or nodes... a list of the variables is here:

http://thwack.com/forums/p/6187/26440.aspx

To add them to show up when you hover over click on edit from the map in the web interface (not atlas) and at the bottom of page click on Customize Map Tooltips.  You can use any variable or custom property in there in the form ${variablename}  Also say you have a node custom property called lab... you could use ${lab} in the tooltips that shows up when hovering over a node.  On my interfaces I like the hoverover to show me when the interface last changed status and it's Bandwidth so I use:

Last Change: ${LastChange}
${OutBandwidth}

For nodes I use:

${Location}
${Contact}
${SerialNumber}
${City}
${DNS}

The Atlas is getting better but still has a way to go as far as letting you configure custom colors for link to change to like green to yellow to red based on x.  It's definately improved though.

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 23

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578 Posts
Points 3,349
Answered (Verified) ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 11:52 AM
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Verified by BakerD

Possibly use a cloud icon from Visio in the background image... then drag a Led into the cloud... draw a line between your internet edge device to the led in the cloud.  Then open up your internet edge router on the left hand side.  right click and get properties on the link to the cloud... then drag over the interface on the router that goes to the cloud led so the link will change based on the status of the interface.  Then the line to the cloud will change color when the internet link is down.

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 23

194 Posts
Points 4,956
BakerD replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 12:35 PM
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My background already has the clouds on it, so I'm good there.

Not sure what or where this LED you are referring to is?  I only see how to drag my nodes or devices onto the map.  So I put my edge router out there, but then need something in/on the cloud that will let me draw a link to.

 

EDIT: Oh I see now.  I put an LED out there and it just has a unknown/unassigned status which is fine.

So is there a way to get the line to also show utilization by changing colors or with a mouse over?

  • | Post Points: 3

578 Posts
Points 3,349
Answered (Verified) ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 2:21 PM
rated by 0 users
Verified by BakerD

You need to do the right click on the link to open properties on it... then you can find the interface on your router on the left side of Network Atlas window and drag it over and drop onto the inteface properties window you have open.  This makes the link change to red when your internet router interface is down.

You can use any of the orion or your custom properties on mouse overs on you map for interfaces or nodes... a list of the variables is here:

http://thwack.com/forums/p/6187/26440.aspx

To add them to show up when you hover over click on edit from the map in the web interface (not atlas) and at the bottom of page click on Customize Map Tooltips.  You can use any variable or custom property in there in the form ${variablename}  Also say you have a node custom property called lab... you could use ${lab} in the tooltips that shows up when hovering over a node.  On my interfaces I like the hoverover to show me when the interface last changed status and it's Bandwidth so I use:

Last Change: ${LastChange}
${OutBandwidth}

For nodes I use:

${Location}
${Contact}
${SerialNumber}
${City}
${DNS}

The Atlas is getting better but still has a way to go as far as letting you configure custom colors for link to change to like green to yellow to red based on x.  It's definately improved though.

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 23

194 Posts
Points 4,956
BakerD replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 2:53 PM
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I think we are getting close :).

 

I put in a few variables ${InBps} and ${OutBps}, but interfaces it doesn't show anything I add.  I even tried the two you listed and no luck.  When I mouse over the link line it just pops up and says Network Link in the green bar and under that in the white box says Serial1/0 - description......

Just in testing I put ${Location} and ${Contact} under the nodes section and those work.

 

 

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578 Posts
Points 3,349
ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 3:10 PM
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Unfortunately I don't think the mouse overs work on links only the actual interface BUT you can drag that internet interface from inside network atlas and drop it on LED you put in the cloud for status on the LED to change color with the interface also... just like you did with the link line..then when you hover over the LED in the cloud it will show the interface information you configured in the tooltip section.  This is what I do.  I have a bunch of interfaces on my map that go to devices I don't manage (like your providers router) so I pull over a generic LED like you did in the cloud and drop my routers interface onto the LED for status.... that way now I see the interface info when hovering over the LED (for you over your cloud LED) and when that interface goes down the cloud LED will go red also... I hope that makes sense :}

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 3

194 Posts
Points 4,956
BakerD replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 3:36 PM
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Ok I am making progress.  I would like my mouse overs to look like and provide the same info as it does when you do a mouse over on a node and a interface from the main page for example.  That code has to be somewhere I would think.

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578 Posts
Points 3,349
ecklerwr1 replied on Fri, Feb 19 2010 4:41 PM
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You can get pretty close with the variables that are available... don't think you can get the vendor icons though just text...

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 3

194 Posts
Points 4,956
BakerD replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 3:19 PM
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Finally I have got to a point I think I'm am happy with or can live with :).  I have created a content exchange if you are interested in my work http://thwack.com/media/p/94657.aspx.

So as ecklerwr1 suggested, I created a base map in visio and saved it as a jpg.  I then imported that as a background in Network Atlas on my map.  I then placed node objects in the correct places.  For my links to the MPLS cloud I just added objects with no association, so gray dots.  That allowed me to draw lines to my MPLS cloud. 

What I really wanted was to be able to mouse over a line and it also have a pop up tooltip showing certain info.  Right now all you get is a pop up that says Network Link and the interface description.  There is no box in the customize tooltips to add variables like you can for nodes, interfaces and volumes.  Since that is not currently possible I ended up splitting up the line and putting an interface node in the middle of it.  This allows me to mouse over this point on the line and get a tooltip pop up showing whatever variables I choose to put in.  See figure 2 below.  The pop up hides the cloud part, but behind it is just the gray non associated object dot.  The line from the node to the interface diamond LED and from the diamond LED to the cloud are exactly the same.  So if the line goes down both segements will show the same status.  Hope that makes sense.  I tried just putting the diamond LED in the middle of the line, but the line always shows on top which made doing a mouse over difficult without making the diamond larger than I wanted.

It is too bad Solarwinds just couldn't keep the standard tooltip popups even for nodes on custom maps.  So jumping in with only very old and outdated knowledge of html tables, I was able to learn a little bit of div tags and css to come up with the below.

 

Figure1:

 

Figure 2:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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578 Posts
Points 3,349
ecklerwr1 replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 4:05 PM
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That's pretty cool thanks for upping to the content exchange... looks good.

 B. Eckler
Engineering Application Services
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 Systems

SolarWinds Orion Core 2010.1.0, NPM 10.0.0, NTA 3.6

  • | Post Points: 1
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