Network Health Monitor — Overview
A tour of the Network Health Monitor: the green/yellow/red status bar, per-network status, automatic alarm thresholds, critical-device detection, maps, and reports.
Transcript
The Network Health Monitor collects and filters data from the IntraVUE database and maintains its own separate database, optimized to provide real-time alarms, warnings, and insights into what IntraVUE is collecting. Without the Network Health Monitor it is up to the user to review the IntraVUE event log to understand what has happened in the network.
The Network Health Monitor provides a user interface designed to instantly tell you the health of your network, using a green, yellow, or red status bar at the top of the application.
The Status tab breaks the status down by individual networks — green networks are good, and a red network has at least one issue. Clicking on the red shows more detail. Additionally, there is a bar graph below each network showing the number of NHM incidents: the times a calculated high-normal value has been exceeded. High-normal values are ones calculated to be exceeded only rarely for a device. When a large percentage of the devices all go over their high-normal values in the same minute it indicates a change in the network, and when 3 of the last 5 minutes exceed that percentage an alert is sent to the user.
The Status tab also shows system information such as memory and disk space, plus the time it takes for the scanner to complete collecting managed-switch data.
New events from IntraVUE are filtered every minute. For instance, every MAC-changed event causes the NHM to search its database for previous MAC-change events for that IP. If it finds previous events changing between two different MACs, it generates an alarm warning of a possible duplicate MAC. There are over 20 alarms and warnings handled by the NHM.
In practice, no IntraVUE users change the default 30-millisecond ping-response threshold in IntraVUE — that is unrealistic for devices like PLCs. The NHM automatically sets ping and bandwidth thresholds in IntraVUE based on historical analysis.
The NHM focuses on the critical devices in your network. Few users bother to set the critical-device settings in IntraVUE, so all devices end up set to Unknown. The NHM has a utility that estimates and sets critical states based on device types such as managed switches, ProfiNet devices, and devices that rarely disconnect.
There is a Connection History report which shows how many days ago a device joined the network and how many days ago the last connection or disconnection occurred. This dialog can be sorted to show the oldest disconnected devices first, and lets the user easily delete devices that have been disconnected for months.
The Network Health Monitor also has its own maps. There is a hypertree map, similar to the original IntraVUE 1, which can zoom in to always keep separation between devices. Maps have lines and nodes which are color-coded — some maps use color to show the critical devices, others show the number of disconnections or ping failures over a configurable time period.
The Device Info tab shows how long each device has been connected or disconnected. It also shows the parent switch, and the port number and description.
The Alarms tab shows the history of alarms — when they occurred, when they were closed, and their duration. In the top right you can click on the number of unacknowledged alarms and warnings to see all the open ones. You can acknowledge an alarm, sleep it, or disable the alarm type for a device or for all devices.
This is a quick view of the Network Health Monitor. There is extensive help documentation as well as more detailed videos available. Thank you for viewing this video.