Monitoring Juniper MX Router

The eG Enterprise includes a specialized monitoring model for continuously monitoring the Juniper MX routers. By periodically polling the SNMP MIBs of the target MX Router, the eG external agent pulls out various metrics of interest relating to performance of the MX Routers. Figure 1 depicts the layer model of a Juniper MX router.

Figure 1 : The layer model of the Juniper MX Router

Every layer of Figure 1 is mapped to a variety of tests which connect to the SNMP MIB of the MX Router to collect critical statistics pertaining to its performance. The metrics reported by these tests enable administrators to answer the following questions:

  • Is any of the hardware components of the target router choking due to the excessive CPU load?
  • Is there any hardware component of the target router down or running at abnormal speed?
  • How well the kernel memory is utilized by the router?
  • Which BGP peer is busy processing more number of messages?
  • Which type of Real-time performance monitoring (RPM) probe is measuring high latent value?

The tests mapped to the Network Layer has already been discussed in the Monitoring Cisco Routers document. Therefore, the tests mapped to the Router Services and Operating System layers will be discussed in the following sections.