Alarms from Netbotz 250 not being seen / triggered immediately in DCE

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This question was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steve McLaughlin on 2018-08-17

Hello,

We have a number of Netbotz 250 devices that we are monitoring with DCE via SNMPv3.

According to what we have read, DCE configures the Netbotz 250 with a hidden trap receiver destination (priority scanning) so that alarms that are generated on the Netbotz send a trap immediately to DCE and then it is supposed to scan the Netbotz for the alarm information and take action accordingly.

We can see in our logs that the Netbotz 250's are sending these traps to the DCE but it is not alerting or indicating that an alarm has occurred.

Example:

Door sensor open/close - if there are multiple open / close alarms these generate a trap to the DCE for each instance however it shows nothing in its alarm history

We also have the DCE setup to poll the devices every minute and occasionally it will pick up a door alarm if it has occurred and is active at the same time as the poll.

However this is not ideal as we are relying on DCE to perform the monitoring and alerting and to keep a history of all the alarms that have occurred.

When the trap is sent from the Netbotz to DCE is this supposed to generate the alarm immediately or does that only occur if the alarm is still active when DCE scans the netbotz after the trap is received ?

The Netbotz 450 devices we have monitored via DCE never miss an alarm and all alerts are recorded by DCE.

Just trying to understand if this is expected for APC SNMP monitored devices or if something is not configured / working correctly.

Thanks,

Steve

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This answer was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steven Marchetti on 2018-08-17

Hi Steve,

The priority scanning option is the hidden trap receiver process to which you're referring. As long as it is set up properly, your 250 goes into alert and sends a trap. DCE does nothing with this trap other than puts that device next to be scanned. This is to rule out any potential false alarms.

When DCE then polls the device, it polls a specific alarm OID and if there is information available, it reads the data then based on the configuration both in the DDF that gets downloaded from the APC device (creates the device alarm info in DCE) and your configuration on that page, it alerts or doesn't.

If the event happens so quickly that the device sends a trap but the poll does not see any data in the alarm OID, it will not alert. If on the other hand, you've blocked the write community string on the device / network / firewall, or if you've not configured priority scanning, the device will not be scanned until it's next scheduled poll. This could take anywhere from a few seconds up to (if using defaults) 5 minutes.

Thanks,

Steve

See Answer In Context

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This answer was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steven Marchetti on 2018-08-17

Hi Steve,

The priority scanning option is the hidden trap receiver process to which you're referring. As long as it is set up properly, your 250 goes into alert and sends a trap. DCE does nothing with this trap other than puts that device next to be scanned. This is to rule out any potential false alarms.

When DCE then polls the device, it polls a specific alarm OID and if there is information available, it reads the data then based on the configuration both in the DDF that gets downloaded from the APC device (creates the device alarm info in DCE) and your configuration on that page, it alerts or doesn't.

If the event happens so quickly that the device sends a trap but the poll does not see any data in the alarm OID, it will not alert. If on the other hand, you've blocked the write community string on the device / network / firewall, or if you've not configured priority scanning, the device will not be scanned until it's next scheduled poll. This could take anywhere from a few seconds up to (if using defaults) 5 minutes.

Thanks,

Steve

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This comment was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steve McLaughlin on 2018-08-17

Thanks for the quick reply.

That is what I thought was happening.

Not ideal for door sensors which can trigger / clear very quickly.

Ok for smoke/water/temp and other "slow moving" sensors.

At least we know it is working as designed.

Thanks for your help.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This comment was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steven Marchetti on 2018-08-17

No problem. Just an FYI about the 450 though, they work totally different. They do all their own alerting and then just store the alert on DCE pushing it using http or https.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

This comment was originally posted on DCIM Support by Steve McLaughlin on 2018-08-17

Thanks, realize that now about the 450.

In retrospect we should have standardized on all 450's instead of a mix of 450's and 250's.

DCIM_Support · ‎2020-07-04

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