Can I group devices based on interface alias?

Our organization tags WAN interfaces with the name and circuit ID of the provider. I’m looking to see if I can use this information to create dynamic groups of WAN devices based on provider cloud.

Drilling into a relevant device, I can find the the following property/value:

auto.interface.alias - ATT-ASE..DJWU.829478..LB (actual circuit ID obfuscated for obvious reasons)

My initial reaction was to just do something along these lines:

contains(auto.interface.alias,”ATT-ASE..DJWU.829478..LB”)

This obviously doesn’t work. I don’t necessarily know why, perhaps the property is too deep into the device, etc. Long story short, is there any way to accomplish what I’m trying to do? Relatively new to the product and not having luck so far…

Thanks

T S

Posted 3 years ago·Last reply 3 years ago

6 comments

Yuli7483

·3 years ago

Yes, it is possible to group devices based on interface alias in many network management and monitoring tools, including some that use the Net-SNMP protocol that exposes device information via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). However, the exact method for accomplishing this may depend on the specific tool you are using and how it exposes device properties. In general, you will want to look for a way to filter or group devices based on a specific SNMP OID (Object Identifier) that corresponds to the interface alias.

T S

OP3 years ago

Thanks for the ideas Stuart!

Patrick, we have some of everything (Cisco, HP, Alcatel).

Patrick Rouse

·3 years ago

@Tisch, what make/model devices are these?

LM User

·3 years ago

there’s a way to use instance level properties like the aforementioned interface aliases to help group devices as well?

There’s always a way; multiple usually. The way I’d start would be to create a custom propertysource that grabs the instances for the device from the LM API and stores a device level property containing a list of the service provider names (not a trivial thing, but not the hardest in the world). That way you’d have a property you could use to group the devices based on whether that property contains “Comcast” or “Sprint” or “ATT” or whatever.

T S

OP3 years ago

To be honest, a view with instances and a different one with devices would both have value… I’ll check into Service Insight, are you hinting there’s a way to use instance level properties like the aforementioned interface aliases to help group devices as well?

Thanks!

LM User

·3 years ago

It doesn’t work because that’s an instance level property and the group will contain the whole device. Meaning the group rule must use device level properties. Device level properties include any properties set on the device level, not instance level properties.

As far as accomplishing what you’re looking for, you may look into Service Insight. That allows you to create a “group” with individual instances, including some instances on a device and excluding other instances on the same device.

But you can’t really do it with traditional resource groups, unless you’re ok with the entire device and all its instances being in the group.