I’ve been using Observium for a while and there seems to be some discrepancies between my graphs and the upstream (my data center provides me Ethernet GigE bandwidth). For example, from around 8am to 12pm today it showed overall utilization pretty consistent well above 400Mbps.
These switches are actually trunked (2 x 3650 L3 switches). In the graph, it shows the uplink to switch #2 connectivity calculated with the total utilization (VLAN2155). This is definitely not accurate as it shouldn’t do that as far I’m concerned. Total utilization should simply be Drops #1 & #2, which covers all VLANs on both switches.
Example:
Drop #1 = 40Mbps
Drop #2 = 200Mbps
Uplink to Switch #2 = 130Mbps
Now as a result VLAN2155 (total utilization) is calculating not only #1 and #2 drops from the upstream, but even the trunk port labeled “Uplink to Switch #2”.
Why is Observium calculating the “uplink” to the trunked 2nd switch in the total utilization graph? This is throwing off accuracy.
Regarding the Observium software, do you think that it is possible to update Cisco device’s firmware via Observium?
I ask you this because I am learning about Cisco SmartInstall (plug-and-play configuration and image-management feature that provides Zero Touch) to improve the maintenance of a Network.
But if I want to use Cisco SmartInstall I need a “Director Switch” in the Network. So, Do you think it is possible to use the Observium software to avoid the Director Switch?
That would be difficult…smart install needs a TFTP and DHCP server, you could install those two roles on the Observium server but that’s about it. The specific vstack commands are required on the director.
It is possible to send commands through SNMP though. This way, you could instruct a Cisco IOS router/switch through SNMP to fetch a new IOS image from a TFTP server. I doubt Observium supports this though, I think you can only use it to read information from devices.
