Nexus Power Supply Test

The Cisco Nexus Switch supports dual power supply units that are fully hot swappable and ensuring high-availability requirements. The switch is fully functional with one power supply, but a second power supply can be included for power redundancy. Proper functioning of these power supply units is critical to the uninterrupted operations of the switch. The failure of the power supply units, if not attended promptly, can cause short to prolonged breaks in the availability of the switch. Therefore, administrators should be able to proactively detect potential problems with the power supply units and take remedial action before any unpleasant eventuality happens. This where the Nexus Power Supply test helps administrators!

This test auto-discovers the power supply units of the Cisco Nexus Switch and reports the current status of each power supply unit. In addition, this test reports the current power to each power supply unit. Using this test, administrators can detect abnormalities, if any, in the current passing through the power supply unit and detect failures at the earliest.

Target of the test : A Cisco Nexus Switch.

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each power supply unit of the target Cisco Nexus Switch being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The IP address of the Cisco Nexus Switch to be monitored.

SNMPPort

The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; the default is 161.

SNMPVersion

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

SNMPCommunity

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

Username

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. 

Context

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

AuthPass

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPVersion selected is v3.

Confirm Password

Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.

AuthType

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

  • MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
  • SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
  • SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit
  • SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit
  • SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit
  • SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit

EncryptFlag

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. 

EncryptType

If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

  • DES - Data Encryption Standard
  • 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard
  • AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
  • AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit
  • AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit
  • AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit

EncryptPassword

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm Password

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

Timeout

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

Data Over TCP

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

EngineID

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Status

Indicates the current status of this power supply unit.

 

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

State Numeric Value
Failed 0
Off due to other environment 1
On 2
Administratively off 3
Off due to insufficient power 4
Off due to power problem 5
Off due to temperature problem 6
Off due to fan problem 7
On but fan failure 9
Off cooling 10
Off connector rating 11
On but inline power failure 12

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current state of this power supply unit. The graph of this measure however, represents the status of the power supply unit using the numeric equivalents only.

Current

Indicates the current passing through this power supply unit.

Amps

The value of this measure should be in permissible range. If the value of this measure is found to be higher/lower than the admissible range, administrator should immediately take corrective action before it causes permanent damage to the power supply unit.