Beyond monitoring traffic flow and generating alarms every time thresholds are passed, NetMRI periodically analyzes the contents of all router and switch tables to detect device-level problems, such as router and VLAN instability.

Beyond reporting that a given serial link has an excessive error rate, NetMRI analyzes the configuration of the interfaces on both sides of the link to determine what is causing the excessive error rate. NetMRI also tracks changes in status and configuration for all managed devices and displays the Detected Changes and Most Changed Devices listings in an accessible dashboard view.

NetMRI is a network management interface to analyze and monitor devices and enterprise networks, their protocols and their configurations from a convenient Web browser window. The primary browser pages are called the NetMRI Dashboards. The Dashboards are your home pages for managing devices on the network. The Dashboards provide easy access to tasks and to the status of the networks.

NetMRI provides a layered system of tabs to access and operate features of the software. The top layer of the NetMRI tabbed interface provides the six key functional areas of the software, consisting of the following pages.

The NetMRI Dashboards

The Dashboard tab provides information summaries, nerwork analytics, and system healh data. It includes the following sub-tabs:

• General Dashboard
• Performance Dashboard

General Dashboard

The Dashboard tab provides three high-level summaries of information and network analytics, selectable from the Select Dashboard menu at the top of the page. See the following: 

• Timeline Status Summary: This dashboard displays the Network Scorecard (seen here), a numeric metric that provides an at-a-glance overall assessment of the current state of the network. The Timeline Status Summary also provides graphs showing most-changed devices, a policy compliance breakdown, and historical graphs of percent policy compliance, issue variation, and changes:
  • Policy Compliance: This chart shows the daily percentage of all managed devices, as a pie chart, that match against Policy Compliance Rules from the defined Policy Compliance criteria in the NetMRI system. The Percent Policy Compliance bar chart shows the same daily data as a progression from one day to the next.
  • Issue Variation: This chart lists the following data points for the overall daily issue status in the NetMRI system or the Operations Center: The daily Overall Score in yellow, the total issue count and Delta (change in number of Issues; this value can be positive or negative for the time period measurement) in blue; and the number of Added and Deleted Issues in blue. A yellow trendline shows the Overall Score trend over the chart's time period. Green dots at the bottom of the chart are the activity indicators for the measurement time period, showing the number of added or deleted issues. Clicking the trendline opens the Network Analysis -> Issues page, showing the corresponding Overall Score History stacked bar chart.
  • Changes: This shows a bar chart and trendline for specified time increments, with the bar chart indicating the total number of changes, breaking out the administrative and hardware changes for the time period, and the trendline showing the average rate of changes across the entire chart time period.
• Issue Summary: This dashboard replicates the Network Scorecard, shows a Top Issue Types bar chart and a Top Affected Devices bar chart, and displays historical graphs of issue type and instance trends. 
  • Top Issue Types and Top Affected Devices: These show an overview of Issues that appear most frequently in the managed network, and the devices exhibiting the largest number of Issues.
  • New Issue Types: This table lists all new Issues of specific types that appear for the current time period (corresponds to the #New column in the main Network Analysis –> Issues page).
  • New Issue Instances: This table provides the number of devices affected by each Issue type (this value corresponds to the #Affected value in the main Issues page).
  • Type Issue Trend: This area chart combines sections for severity Info (blue), severity Warning (yellow) and severity Error (red), each of which are links to the main Issues page showing a table only for the issues of the chosen severity type.
  • Type Instance Trend: This area chart combines sections for severity Info (blue), severity Warning (yellow) and severity Error (red), each of which are links to the main Issues page showing a table only for the issues of the chosen severity type.
• Change Summary: This dashboard shows most-changed types, most-changed models, most-changed devices, number of changes detected over time, and most-active change makers.
  
  

The main Dashboard page and Network Analysis –> Issues pages display the Network Scorecard, which is a quick-glance guide to the overall status of all Issues in the managed network.

See About the Network Scorecard for more information about this tool.

• To select among the dashboard types, open the Select Dashboard list, then click the desired type.
• To change the date or period for information displayed in the Dashboard, see Setting the Date and Period.

• To change the scope of information displayed in the Dashboard, select an item in the Select Device Groups pane on the right.

  Note

  The Select Device Group pane on the Dashboard tab displays only extended device groups, i.e. groups that allow for calculations.

• To view supporting data, hover the cursor over various elements in graphs and charts.
• To zoom in the Timeline Status Summary graphs, drag to select the section you want to see zoomed in. When you release the mouse button, all three graphs will zoom in.
• To zoom out the Timeline Status Summary graphs (after zooming in), click Show All below the center graph.

Performance Dashboard

The Performance Dashboard displays charts with important metrics of the NetMRI performance and health. Using this information, you can more flexibly assign resources to your NetMRI VM to accommodate device count scaling.

You can choose from the following dashboards on the Performance tab:

• System
• Capacity
• API
• Policy Analysis
• Jobs
• Collection & Consolidation
• Database

To open a dashboard, click the dashboards menu in the top right of the Performance tab and select the required one. For more information, see About NetMRI#Dashboard Display Options.

When a dashboard displays its chart(s), hover over a chart name to see its description in the tooltip.

You can use a calendar in the top left to view metrics statistics for a selected day, week, or month. The selection can also include 7-day and 30-day periods.

Also see Performance Data Retention and Backup.

Dashboard Display Options

There are two dashboard categories to display:

• Basic
• Advanced

To display only basic dashboard categories, click the Settings icon > General Settings > Performance Dashboard > Show Advanced Categories and set the value to "false". Setting the value to "true" enables displaying both categories.

On OC deployments, you can select the unit for which to display dashboards – OC or any of its collectors. To do so, click OC in the top right of the Performance tab and select the required unit.

The following table summarizes available display options:

For display options of specific charts pertaining to a dashboard, see the next sections.

System Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the System dashboard:

Capacity Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the Capacity dashboard:

API Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the API dashboard:

Policy Analysis Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the Policy Analysis dashboard:

Jobs Dashboard

The following table describes the chart available in the Jobs dashboard:

Collection & Consolidation Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the Collection & Consolidation dashboard:

Database Dashboard

The following table describes the charts available in the Database dashboard:

Performance Data Retention and Backup

The following rules apply to the performance dashboard data retention:

• Data is stored in weekly historical partitions.
• Data is archived after one month.
• Data is deleted after 18 months.

To change data retention times, click the Settings icon -> Database Settings > Data Retention > Performance Dashboard Data.

To archive the performance data during a database backup, click Settings icon > General Settings >  Advanced Settings > Performance Dashboard and set the Add Performance tables to the backup option to "yes".

  Network Analysis

Network Analysis also features the Network Scorecard on its front page. Information is organized in four tabs within the Network Analysis page:

• Issues: This tab summarizes the current network status, showing the same scorecard that appears on the main Dashboard, a flexible Network History chart, and an overview of current problems and possible problems in the network.
• Changes: This tab summarizes all recent changes made to the network, and provides features to change the information displayed in the summary table.
• Policy Compliance: This tab summarizes the results of Policies developed in the Policy Compliance features for device groups and active devices in the network.
• Performance: This tab summarizes active device operations in charts and tables.

  Network Explorer

The Network Explorer tab displays everything NetMRI learns about the network. Network Explorer is a good starting point for inspecting the results of a Network Discovery process, viewing the topology of the discovered network, viewing the operational state of individual network devices (through a feature called the Device Viewer), and obtaining views of how the network is behaving in different locations in the topology.

See the following tabs within the Network Explorer tab that offer different ways to examine network data:

• Inventory: This tab provides basic information about devices, interfaces, operating systems, and models in the network.
• Summaries: This tab lists routes (for all routing protocols), subnetworks, Route Targets, Network Views, VRFs (Virtual Routing and Forwarding instances), VLANs, HSRPs/VRRPs, and TCP/UDP port usage in the network.
• Topology: This tab provides an interactive viewer for exploring your network's structure.
• Discovery: This tab provides detailed information about NetMRI's discovery processes, including the ability to affect Discovery settings for individual devices, perform/repeat Discovery on a single device, set licensing for a managed device, and remove a device from NetMRI management. For more information on device-related Discovery functions, see Viewing Device Discovery Status and Re-Discovering a Device.

Configuration Management

Configuration Management provides a powerful set of features for managing, normalizing, and editing configurations for all devices managed by NetMRI, including the following:

• Config Archive: This tab lists all devices in each Device Group, and is the front end for browsing, viewing, and editing configuration files from any active device, or comparing between two devices in the managed network. Configuration files drive the operation of higher-end routers, switches, firewalls, and other device types across the network. You can read, edit, and compare similar-device configuration files across the network.
•  Config Search: This tab lets you search devices in the network for a particular configuration string, an IP address, or other specific device specification such as a MAC address, device model, or other phenomena, using many different types of search criteria and even regular expressions.
• Job Management: This tab enables the creation, scheduling, approval, and execution of Job Management scripts in the Perl and CCS languages, and the definition of custom issues to extend the library of issue types that NetMRI uses for reporting and monitoring of adverse events in the network. Job Management is used to automate common network administration tasks, and efficiently enforce normalization and best-practices configuration across the managed network. A critical feature set classified under Job Management is the Automation Change Manager (ACM), which leverages NetMRI's scripting capabilities to support a set of Infoblox NIOS network automation utilities. Subcategories of Job Management include the following tabbed pages:
  • Scripts: This tab lists all scripts in the NetMRI system.
  • Library: This tab provides a location for CCS and Perl subroutines that can be called by other scripts.
  • Config Templates: This tab, a location for templates containing configuration snippets and variables for easier job automation.
  • Lists: This tab, a second library page, for lists of spreadsheet-type list data for use in automation jobs.
  • Scheduled Jobs: This tab shows the current list of scheduled automation jobs.
  • Triggered Jobs: This tab shows the current list of recently triggered jobs.
  • Job History: This tab shows the complete history of automation jobs run in the NetMRI managed network.
  • Custom Issues: This tab allows the definition of custom issues based on job execution.
• Policy Design Center: This allows you to create rules and policies, and deploy policies on the network. Policy is a tool for ensuring all devices in the network meet minimum standards of readiness and security. Rules are the building blocks that form a policy. You deploy policies against devices and groups of devices. See Policy Design Center for more details.
  • Summary: This tab provides features for the quick creation of Policy Rules, build a new Policy, or schedule and deploy Policies.
  • Rules: This tab allows you to explore the entire library of Policy Rules and provides the ability to create, edit, copy, import, and export Rules.
  • Policies: This tab provides general Policy management features, such as editing, printing, and import/export, and test Policies against devices, configuration files, and configuration templates.
  • Policy Deployment: This tab allows admins to enable policies against individual devices or device groups.

  Reports

The Reports page provides features that allow you to run publishable reports from providing device information in a report to reports across device groups or types of devices, to network-wide reports indicating trends across the network.

• Reports Gallery: This tab lists standard and custom reports that are available in the current instance of NetMRI, and provides the interface to run and create new reports. Related Report types are gathered into categories where similar data sets can be compared and analyzed. See Scheduling and Running Reports for further details.
• Scheduled Reports: This tab lists reports that are currently scheduled to run from the NetMRI appliance, and allows the editing of scheduled reports to change their timing and configuration. See Scheduling and Running Reports for further details.
• Report Manager: This tab provides listings of all Active and Inactive Reports for the current NetMRI appliance, and enables monitoring of currently running and active reports. See Opening the Report Manager for more information.