When I was a young I enjoyed watching TV game shows. Whether it was The Price is Right, Joker’s Wild or Sports Challenge, I couldn’t get enough of guessing the right price of the kitchen appliance before the hiker fell of the cliff, or seeing three jokers come on the screen, or having a question asked about my favorite sports team.
But there’s one game show that continues to play in my head – Name that Tune. For those that aren’t familiar, one of key parts of every episode the two contestants would bid on how many notes it would take them to guess a song. Back and forth they’d go, saying to each other– “I can that tune in 5 notes”, “…4 notes”, “…3 notes”, etc., until one of contestants would call the other’s bluff, and say to their competitor, “Name that Tune!” The TV pianist would then play the specific number of notes, and the contestant would have to name the song.
So why does this old TV game show stick with me? Well, it reminds me of one of the core values of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM), our 10-business day SNMP device certification process. Anytime I explain this process to our customers, I almost slip and say, “I can name that tune in 10 days!”.
Let me explain more how the SevOne NPM new SNMP device certification process works.
IBM SevOne NPM – New SNMP Device Certification Process
The IBM SevOne NPM team can work with you to certify new SNMP devices in 10 business days or less, while competitors often take months to programmatically certify a new device. The ability to quickly discover and certify new devices ensures that there is no gap in performance reporting when you deploy a new SNMP enabled device. SevOne NPM support engineers will certify new devices within 10 business days from the day the filing of a support case with the necessary device information.
SevOne NPM support includes the ability for customers to request assistance with the certification of new devices, such as network devices and servers, for inclusion in their SevOne SNMP certified device library. This is a no-charge event that provides a fast and effective way to ensure users of the SevOne NPM can have the most complete visibility of your network and related devices.
SevOne NPM supports a three-step process for device certification is as follows:
Step 1: Customer Provides Device Information
The customer provides SevOne NPM Support with the following information:
- Device Manufacturer (e.g., Cisco, Juniper)
- Device Role (e.g., Router, Switch, Server)
- The name and IP address of the device as it was added into SevOne NPM system
- Key object and indicator information required, including OID names
- Any relevant new MIBs associated with the device
- An SNMP walk from the new device
Step 2: SevOne NPM Builds Device Certification
After you submit a certification ticket or send the required information via e-mail, SevOne NPM support team reviews the files and interprets where the data resides and how the SevOne NPM system should properly import the values the device provides.
The SevOne NPM support team performs this as a collaborative process with you by studying the SNMP MIBs and the walk file to determine how to properly interpret the values the device returns when SevOne NPM performs a snmpget for the OIDs you request and builds a device certification file for you.
Step 3: SevOne NPM Delivers Device Certification
At this point, users import the device certification file into their SevOne NPM system, specifically the NMS master configuration database. After the import, you may need to associate any new object types to their device types. SevOne NPM must then rediscover the device. After the discovery completes and the device polls for three polling cycles (to get enough data to graph), users typically run an instant graphs report on the new objects to verify that the definitions are correct.
That’s it – three steps for adding new SNMP devices into a SevOne NPM system. Monitoring today’s networks that support the applications driving your business is difficult enough. You shouldn’t have to wait weeks or months for new SNMP device support.
Curious what one of the old “Name that Tune” episodes looked like? Check out this YouTube clip from KNBC in Los Angeles from January 1977.