Hi Dennis, Regarding your four simple suggestions, I both agree and disagree.
1) Unnecessary: I use 'Interface Name' for my Cisco devices to achieve the result you're looking for. 2) I Agree, as the blue x on a line has a dual meaning. -- In addition, I'd love to have an option to put the link down into a timed or maintenance condition, as the simple Ack must be reset everytime the line link comes up and goes back down. When performing maintenance or simply monitoring the up/down status of a link, I'd really love to be able to put it into maintenance mode so the down status doesn't alarm everyone. 3) I Disagree; Appletalk still exists on networks, and should be monitored as each Network Admin desires. Removing a protocol monitoring capability because someone doesn't know what it is doesn't make it go away. People should instead educate themselves about what is actually running on their network. This goes for all the other protocols that many devices (such as printers) enable by default. Perhaps, in a future version, another approach might be to show all protocols seen on the network or in routers, and then have both global and device options to turn off monitoring for those protocols. Personally, I absolutely need to know everything running on our network and keep it running smoothly - that's what I get paid for! :-) 4) I disagree, for similar reasons as in #3. Interface discards are NOT meaningless. Most of my interfaces should not have discards. A few here and there may only indicate occasional buffer shortages, which may be acceptable if it was just caused by a max throughput file copy, but unacceptable if it indicates that the switch/router is not capable of handling the volume of traffic required. Excessive discards can be a great indicator of physical line problems, electronics going bad, or software gone crazy. There are dozens of causes for discards, and those of us whose job it is to ensure our network is running optimally must care. Thanks, Randy Millsop Network Administrator San Joaquin Delta College ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pedro Quezada" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2011 9:33:57 AM Subject: Re: [IM-Talk] four simple suggestions How about putting a wrench on the acked interface so that it is consistent .. ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2011 12:25 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [IM-Talk] four simple suggestions Hi Dartware, Below are four simple suggestions for improving Intermapper. Thanks Dennis O'Reilly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (1) For interface name labels introduce a "Short, Port Name". For Cisco devices this would shorten: Ethernet1/2 to Et1/2 FastEthernet1/2 to Fa1/2 GigabitEthernet1/0/2 to Gi1//0/2 PortChannel1 to Po1 TenGigabitEthernet1/2 to Te1/2 etc. (2) When an interface is down (red X) the device goes into alarm on the map. A common technique is to right click on the interface to acknowledge the interface down so that the device goes green again. When this is done the red X changes to a blue X. The problem with this is that the user cannot distinguish between a down acknowledged interface and an administratively down interface, since both have blue X's. It would be better to either keep the red X but have a little blue acknowledge check mark beside it or change the interface line color to blue. (3) For Set Behavior, please remove "Ignore Appletalk Port Information". This is confusing to new customers who probably don't have any idea what Appletalk is or that it was was extensively used at Dartmouth College in the last century. (4) Also, for Set Behavior, change the default for "Ignore Interface Discards" to on, or at least provide a global setting to change this behavior. As has been discussed on this list in the past interface discards are in general meaningless, and having interface discards reported confuses customers into thinking ethernet errors are occurring. Also, it is frustrating to always have to manually turn on "Ignore Interface Discards" for all devices. ____________________________________________________________________ List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [email protected] ____________________________________________________________________ List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [email protected] ____________________________________________________________________ List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [email protected]
