HP Network Node Manager 9 : Discovering and Monitoring Your Network - Examining discovery results (part 2)

Stopping/starting managing of nodes, cards, or interfaces

There are cases when the discovered node (nodes) needs to be stopped from being polled by NNMi for sometime. That is:

• You want a node to be displayed on a map, but no status changes need to be monitored.
• The node is under maintenance works and needs to be stopped being monitored to avoid fault-positive incidents in a browser.

What is a stop managing object?

NNMi allows configuring for a specific object management mode. That is, to set some nodes, cards, interfaces, or addresses into managed, unmanaged, or out of service state.

Why we need to change the management mode?

This gives a flexible adjustment tool for administrators to comply with complex management requirements. It also allows improvement of system performance, including only objects that need to be managed. There might be cases when some nodes are discovered, but not managed. Also, there might be cases when maintenance is applied to a part of the network and the administrator wants to exclude following alarms to be displayed to operators. That is, firmware upgrade for some switches or specific model of routers, and so on. In that case, there is an option to temporarily set a group of objects to the Out Of Service state.

How does it work?

There are two management modes used in NNMi:

• Management mode: This mode can be set on node. Interface and address modes are calculated based on node settings. Mode on interface is set based on mode-on-node, and mode-on-address is calculated based on mode-on-interfaces associated to that address. Possible values are:
  • Managed
  • Not managed
  • Out of service
• Direct management mode: This mode is set on the interface or address by the user and it computes interface or address values as following:
  • Inherited
  • Not managed
  • Out of service

One of the ways to see the management of mode-for-node, interface, or address is using node view, interface view, or IP address view.

The following screenshot represents management mode in node view:

To change management mode you can use:

• nnmmanagementmode.ovpl script
• Use the form

If you set the object to Not Managed or Out of Service mode, the following features would be affected:

• Management Mode: For nodes, setting the Management Mode to Not Managed or Out of Service has the following effects:
  • No incidents are generated for the node
  • The status of a node is set to No Status
  • The node's SNMP agent is excluded from fault polling
  • The node's interfaces or addresses are excluded from fault and performance polling
  • Traps related to the node, interface, or address are not stored
  • NNMi quits gathering component health data about the node
  • NNMi deletes all polled instances associated with the Not Managed or Out of Service, and the node stops being monitored.
  • The node is removed from any associated Router Redundancy groups
  • The node is excluded from the discovery
  • Actions | Configuration Poll is no longer available for the node or incident related to that node
• Direct Management Mode: For interfaces, setting the Direct Management Mode to Not Managed or Out of Service has the following effects:
  • No incidents are generated for the interface
  • No incidents are generated for the address
  • The status of the interface is set to No Status
  • The state of the address is set to Not Polled
  • The address is excluded from fault and performance polling
  • The interface and any related addresses are excluded from fault and performance polling
  • The Administrative State and Operational State of the interface are set to Not Polled
  • Traps related to interface will not be stored

If the address or interface is set to Not Managed using Direct Management Mode, NNMi calculates the management mode for all associated objects. The following table provides a list of possible values on every object.

The table provides a list of management modes for interfaces, where the first column represents a node's management mode, and the second and third columns show the interfaces management mode, depending whether interface is set as direct management mode or not:

Node—Management Mode	Interface—Direct Management Mode	Interface—Management Mode
Managed	Inherited	Managed
Not Managed	Inherited	Not Managed
Out of Service	Inherited	Out of Service
Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed
Not Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed
Out of Service	Not Managed	Not Managed
Managed	Out of Service	Out of Service
Not Managed	Out of Service	Out of Service
Out of Service	Out of Service	Out of Service

The following table provides a list of dependencies of management mode for addresses:

Node—Management Mode	Interface—Direct Management Mode	Address—Direct Management Mode	Address—Management Mode
Managed	Inherited	Inherited	Managed
Not Managed	Inherited	Inherited	Not Managed
Out of Service	Inherited	Inherited	Out of Service
Managed	Not applicable	Inherited	Managed
Not Managed	Not applicable	Inherited	Not Managed
Out of Service	Not applicable	Inherited	Out of Service
Managed	Not Managed	Inherited	Managed
Not Managed	Not Managed	Inherited	Not Managed
Out of Service	Not Managed	Inherited	Not Managed
Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed
Not Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed
Out of Service	Not Managed	Not Managed	Not Managed
Managed	Not applicable	Not Managed	Not Managed
Not Managed	Not applicable	Not Managed	Not Managed
Out of Service	Not applicable	Not Managed	Not Managed
Managed	Out of Service	Inherited	Out of Service
Not Managed	Out of Service	Inherited	Out of Service
Out of Service	Out of Service	Inherited	Out of Service
Managed	Out of Service	Out of Service	Out of Service
Not Managed	Out of Service	Out of Service	Out of Service
Out of Service	Out of Service	Out of Service	Out of Service
Managed	Not applicable	Out of Service	Out of Service
Not Managed	Not applicable	Out of Service	Out of Service
Out of Service	Not applicable	Out of Service	Out of Service

Management mode change examples

We have a scheduled maintenance window on site A and B and we, as NNMi administrators, don't want operators to receive any messages from these sites during maintenance window. The best way to achieve this requirement is to change management mode to Out of Service on the nodes that are under the maintenance window. Assuming that site A and B are nodes with IP addresses 10.10.1.1 and 192.168.1.1.

Complete following steps in order to set nodes into Out of Service mode:

1. Select Inventory workspace.
2. Select Nodes view.
3. Select nodes 10.10.1.1 and 192.168.1.1.
   
4. Select Actions from top menu.
5. Select Out of Service.

Congratulations! You have set nodes to Out of Service mode. To make sure they are in this mode, you may refresh Nodes view or open Out Of Service Nodes in same Management Mode workspace:

After maintenance is complete, we may need to set these nodes back to Managed mode. Complete the following steps to set nodes back to Managed mode:

1. Select Management mode workspace.
2. Select Out of Service Nodes view.
3. Select nodes 10.10.1.1 and 192.168.1.1.
   
4. Select Actions from top menu.
5. Select Managed.

Congratulations! You set nodes back to Managed mode.