New Google Map Resource for Orion (Beta)

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New Google Map Resource for Orion (Beta)

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pHubb posted on Mon, Jan 14 2008 11:03 AM | Locked

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I don’t have a lot of posts on Thwack, but I’m trying to fix that. :) This weekend I got my Orion Google Map resource working, and wanted to get your feedback. If you like it please let me know and I’ll package it for redistribution on your server.

You can see what it looks like here on the online demo:

http://oriondemo.solarwinds.com/Orion/SummaryView.aspx?viewid=157&AccountID=Guest&Password=Orion

Once upon a time I was a pretty good JavaScript developer, but it’s been a while and this was challenging. The real trick was getting multiple Google maps to work on the same page. Orion is really good at that, but none of the Google maps API examples have more than one map on a page and I knew users would expect the same thing from this resource. The Orion part was actually pretty easy.

The resource contains three major parts:

A Google Maps key manager to allow you to use multiple keys to support different URL’s on the same machine
The Orion resource files, images and JavaScript files that run the display
An interactive editor.

The editor really is the secret sauce because it lets you graphically configure each map without needing to know anything about how Google maps work, for example the gory details of geocoded coordinates. You just get it looking the way you want, size, zoom, which controls to show and the type of the map, and the editor takes care of it for you. It even automatically generates a special query to limit the geographic extent of the selected nodes to the size of the map, while also letting you use the same filtering you use in node list resources. Creating a map of all non-"up" US Cisco routers took less than a minute.

Editor screenshots:

Map in Orion, click "Edit" to update as Admin, hover over a point for node details

Editor, with dynamic updates

To make it work you must use the Custom Property editor to add the pre-defined Latitude and Longitude properties to the Nodes table. You can then either manually set them up (there’s a tool on the map editor that gives you the coordinates for cut-and-paste), or populate them any way you like. For example you could use a Custom Poller to get the data from GPS aware devices. The resource won't try to add nodes that don't have these values for performace.

I’m making a few final tweaks, so please check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Patrick

Patrick Hubbard Technical Product Marketing Manager SolarWinds

Filed under: configure, custom poller, Orion, 8.5, custom website ideas, Orion 8.5 web
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SamuelB replied on Mon, Jan 14 2008 3:06 PM | Locked

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I am surprised that no one has replied to this already. This looks great! I would definitely like a copy of the necessary files once you are ready to share them! I really like the way that you have not only created the resources but you have also taken the time to provide some nice "Edit" features.

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jbaulsir replied on Mon, Jan 14 2008 3:40 PM | Locked

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Very Nice, I'd like to try it.

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urug_ocsic replied on Mon, Jan 14 2008 4:01 PM | Locked

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This is outstanding, I would like to have this resource also.

Thanks

Scott Eddy
Lead Voice and Data Communications
CCNP/CCNA, ITILv3
American Water
scott.eddy@amwater.com

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44 Posts

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pHubb replied on Mon, Jan 14 2008 4:04 PM | Locked

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Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you like it. I'll start packaging it for testing. Also from your feedback I fixed a bug in IE6 when mousing over nodes quickly blanks the maps, and found that the "Detach Resource" page is broken because I implemented the node lookups in the wrong aspx method.

I'm headed to Spain for Networkers Friday so I may not have time to have it ready for download this week, but will work on it on the plane. (Documentation ugh!) I'll reply to this thread and repost 1 day sticky when it's ready.

Now what would be really cool would be a resource for the Node Details view that centers on a single device to show you where it is. :)

-Patrick

Patrick Hubbard Technical Product Marketing Manager SolarWinds

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Don331 replied on Mon, Jan 14 2008 4:58 PM | Locked

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I'd like to see this one too.. Nice work!

BTW, enjoy Spain....watch out for the local sangria!

lucky!

Don

Don Barry IFCO SYSTEMS N.A. INC.

Orion SLX - VoIP - Netflow - NCM - Toolset

2008 Server 64 Bit App & DB

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qvindesland replied on Tue, Jan 15 2008 3:39 AM | Locked

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Hello Patrick,

This is such a awesome piece of work, where can i download it?

Regards
Per Qvindesland

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pHubb replied on Tue, Jan 15 2008 10:48 AM | Locked

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Glad you like it. I put it online to get feedback, and so far it's driven a few changes which I'm making this week. I'll get it packaged and hope to have it down-loadable in a few days. The installer is easy, a zip file you unpack in the Orion root directory. I'll post again when it's ready to go.

-P

Patrick Hubbard Technical Product Marketing Manager SolarWinds

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Network_Guru replied on Tue, Jan 15 2008 11:25 AM | Locked

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I did something similar some time ago, although a little more basic.
It does not show the Node info in Google - just the location of the Node.

I created a link on the node details page with the following code (must be customized to use your own Custom Resources).

<tr>
<td class="Property"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.maps.google.com/maps?q=<%=Node.GetProperty("Address")%>, <%=Node.GetProperty("City")%>, <%=Node.GetProperty("Region")%> +Canada">Get Map for this Location</a></td>
</tr>

Note, you can also use ZIP codes to locate your nodes in Google.

-=Cheers=-
NG

(1) Orion v8.1 SLX polling engine & web site
(1) Orion v8.1 SLX polling engine
(1) Orion v9.1 SP4 SL2000
(1) Orion v9.5 SP2 SL2000 :-(
(1) APM AL500 RC 2.5, (1) VoIP monitor V2.0, (1) NCM V8.3, (1) EOC
(1) MS SQL2005 SE - 14GB Ram, 3 disk Raid 0
(2) MS SQLExpress2005 c/w 3 & 4 SCSI disk Raid 0

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pHubb replied on Tue, Jan 15 2008 11:53 AM | Locked

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That's a cool solution. You're also using the Geo Caching API with the address so you don't need the lat,lng of the nodes and they do the heavy lifting. I actually started with something like that, but when I started looking at the location and address fields on a lot of the devices I was seeing entries like "Rack 2, U2-4" and one actually said "by Bob's desk".

I'm hoping that version 2 of this will let you drop nodes on the maps directly. Also, I want to do roll-ups from other maps but for that I'll have to add a table to the database and that's a little more involved. One thing that I think will make the cut this week is are "JumpPoints". You can add a JumpPoint to a map which basically just links to any URL so you can link from a GoogleMap to an Orion map. You can easily use the Orion MapMaker to jump to a GoogleMap already, so with JumpPoints the circle will be complete. I'd thought about using GoogleMaps overlays, but even with the satellite zoom level of 20, there's no way to get down far enough to actually map to a rack, so that won't work anyway.

-Patrick

Patrick Hubbard Technical Product Marketing Manager SolarWinds