Hitachi Switch Modules Test

The Hitachi Compute Blade is designed to contain up to 4 high-throughput flexible IO switch modules. The backplane within the server chassis of the target Hitachi Compute Blade interconnects the switch module to the server blades. Each server blade connects to the backplane and thus to the switch modules through an onboard CNA or Mezzanine cards on the server blade. All external ports of a switch module are available even if only one server blade is installed. These switch modules enable the Hitachi Compute Blade to support flexible connectivity for cloud architectures including loseless Ethernet fabrics. If any of these switch modules fail or if these switch modules are under maintenance for a longer duration, then, the switch modules may not be available for use resulting in connectivity failure among the blades. To prevent such failures, administrators should monitor the switch modules round the clock. The Hitachi Switch Modules test helps administrators in this regard!

This test auto-discovers the switch modules within the chassis of the target Hitachi Compute Blade, and reports the current health and power supply status of each switch module. In addition, this test also reveals the switch modules that are currently undermaintenance.

Target of the test : Hitachi Compute Blade

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each switch module on the Hitachi Compute Blade being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the tests
TEST PERIOD - How often should the test be executed Host – The IP address of the Hitachi Compute Blade SnmpPort – The port at which the Hitachi Compute Blade 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 the username 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 encryptflagis 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 the TIMEOUT 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 the data over tcp 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

Health status

Indicates the current health of this switch module.

The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Normal	1
Failed	2
Unknown	0

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating the health of each switch module. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.

PowerSupply status

Indicates the current power supply status of this switch module.

The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
PowerOff	1
Standby	2
PowerOn	3
Unknown	4
PowerOn Executing	5
PowerOff Executing	6

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating the current power supply status of each switch module. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.

Maintenance mode

Indicates the current maintenance mode of this switch module.

The values that this measure can report and the numeric values they indicate have been listed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Normal	1
CE Maintenance Mode	2
User Maintenance Mode	3
Unknown	4

Note:

By default, this measure can report the Measure Values mentioned above while indicating the current maintenance mode of the switch module. However, the graph of this measure is indicated using the numeric equivalents.