Documentation forNetwork Performance Monitor
Monitoring network performance is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is also available in a standalone module.

Monitor Ruckus SmartZone wireless infrastructure

Add Ruckus SmartZone orchestrator nodes for monitoring access points with interfaces, rogue access points, and clients for the wireless controller.

What is monitored for Ruckus SmartZone infrastructure?

Monitored entity Metrics
Wireless Controller
  • Controller name
  • IP address
Access Point
  • Access point name
  • IP address
  • SSID
  • Channels (interface property)
  • MAC (interface property)
  • Radio type (interface property)
  • Clients count
  • Bandwidth utilization
Client
  • Client name
  • SSID
  • IP Address
  • MAC
  • Signal strength
  • Connected
  • Data rate
  • Data transmitted/received
Rogue Access Point
  • SSID
  • MAC

Requirements

  • Ruckus SmartZone account with at least read-only permissions. See Creating Administrator Accounts and Resource Group Details.

  • Ruckus SmartZone 5.0 and later (API version 7.0 or later).

    Ruckus SmartZone polling uses APIs that requires serviceTicket to be passed as a request URI parameter for auth validation. Support for serviceTicket-based auth validation was introduced in API v 7.0.

  • SSL Settings: By default, the SSL validation for Ruckus SmartZone orchestrators is set to true. If there is no certificate installed for Ruckus SmartZone authentication, an SSL-related error occurs. See Unable to validate the SSL Certificate for the Ruckus SmartZone Controller.

    Self-signed certificates are not supported.

Limitations

  • Performance metrics, such as response time or availability, are polled via REST API authorization requests. As a result, the response times are longer than for other nodes, and thus using default thresholds might result in marking the node status as critical. To address this, customize the Response Time thresholds when adding the nodes.

Request frequency and limits

Supported versions of Ruckus SmartZone (vSZ/SZ) support a maximum configurable Uplink/Downlink Rate Limiting of 200 Mbps. See Maximum Rate limiting on vSZ/SZ.

As of October 2024, the APIs used below have no rate limiting defined.

API calls used for polling wireless access points

  API request Purpose
1 /{{apiVersion}}/serviceTicket Login
2 /{{apiVersion}}/rkszones?serviceTicket={{serviceTicket}} Status poller
3 /{{apiVersion}}/query/ap?serviceTicket={{serviceTicket}} Statistics collection poller - gets information on APs and interfaces.
4 /{{apiVersion}}/query/roguesInfoList?serviceTicket={{serviceTicket}} Statistics collection poller - gets information on rogue APs.
5 /{{apiVersion}}/query/client?serviceTicket={{serviceTicket}} Statistics collection poller - gets information clients.

Before you begin

Prepare your Ruckus SmartZone customer and client details. You need this information when adding your Ruckus SmartZone infrastructure for monitoring.

Log in to the Ruckus SmartZone management console and gather the following details:

  • Username
  • Password
  • Base URL

See Virtual SmartZone - Essentials Public API Reference Guide for details about where to find the details.

Add Ruckus SmartZone wireless infrastructure for monitoring

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as an administrator.

  2. Click Settings > Manage Nodes and click Add a Node.

  3. In Polling Method, select Orchestrators: API.

  4. Select Ruckus SmartZone Devices and provide the following details:

    • Username
    • Password
    • Base URL

    Polling Ruckus SmartZone uses the global HTTP proxy settings. To change the defaults, click the Configure your HTTP proxy link.

    When you fill in the details, the Get Zones button becomes enabled.

  5. Click Get Zones and select a zone.

    • To monitor a particular zone, select it in the drop-down.
    • To monitor devices in all zones, select All Zones.

  6. Review and adjust the device properties.

    1. Review your Ruckus SmartZone user details, client details, and proxy settings.

    2. To edit how often the node status, or monitored statistics are updated, change the values in the Polling area.

      By default, Node Status is polled every 120 seconds and requires two requests - an authentication request and the status request. Statistics are polled every 10 minutes and require one authentication request with 3 entity requests.

    3. Enter values for custom properties for the node.

      The Custom Properties area is empty if you have not defined any custom properties for the monitored nodes. See "Add custom properties to nodes" in the SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide.

    4. To adjust when the status of the node changes to Warning or Critical, edit alerting thresholds for the metric. Select the Override box and set thresholds for the node.

      Response times for Ruckus SmartZone nodes might be 1-2 seconds. Consider adjusting the thresholds accordingly.

  7. Click OK, Add Node.

The Ruckus SmartZone device is now added as a node. After the first poll, you can see the data from the device in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

On the Manage Nodes view, click the added node to see the node details in the Wireless Controller view, or drill down into thin access points listed on the view. Check Node Details to verify that the Machine Type of the new device is Ruckus SmartZone Cloud Orchestrator.

Troubleshooting

Unable to validate the SSL Certificate for the Ruckus SmartZone Controller

If you see this message when adding Ruckus SmartZone orchestrators for monitoring, no valid SSL certificate was found for the Ruckus SmartZone Controller.

The same issue is reported as the following error in the in the Orchestrators.BusinessLayer.log:

System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. --->
System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure.

To resolve this issue:

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console as an administrator.

  2. Copy /Admin/AdvancedConfiguration/Global.aspx and paste it into your browser address bar, after /Orion. See Access the Advanced Configuration.

  3. Now in Advanced Configuration Settings, search for Orchestrators.RuckusSmartZone.

  4. Clear the VerifySslCertificate box.

  5. Click Save to apply your changes.

  6. Restart indicated services.