Documentation forNetwork Performance Monitor

Monitor Aruba Central wireless infrastructure

Add Aruba Central orchestrator nodes for monitoring, monitor performance metrics, access points, SSIDs for the wireless controller, switches, and wireless devices.

What does NPM monitor for Aruba Central infrastructure?

Monitored WAP entity Metrics
Wireless Controller
  • Controller name
  • IP address
  • Utilization of each interface (interface state, name, and availability)
Access Point
  • Access point name
  • IP address
  • IPv6 address
  • Clients
  • SSID
  • Channels (interface property)
  • MAC (interface property)
  • Radio type (interface property)
Client
  • Client name
  • SSID
  • IP Address
  • IPv6 address
  • MAC
  • Signal Strength
  • Connected
Monitored switch/wireless entity Metrics
Inventory Device
  • Device Name
  • Status
  • IP Address
  • Model
  • Product Type
  • Serial No
  • Network
  • Managed By Platform
CPU/ Memory Load
  • CPU Name
  • Percent Load
Device Info
  • System Name
  • Machine Type
  • Description
  • IP Address
  • Location
  • MAC
Response Time and Status
  • Status
  • Response Time
IP Addresses
  • IP Address
  • Subnet Mask
Network Topology
  • Source Type
  • Destination Type
  • Layer Type
  • Link Type
Network Topology Port/ Vlan
  • Local Port Number
  • Remote Port Id
  • Remote Port Description
  • Remote System Name
  • Remote IP Address
  • Remote Interface Index
Interfaces status and discovery
  • Interface Index
  • Interface Name
  • Admin Status
  • Oper Status
  • Duplex Mode
  • Interface Type
  • Interface Speed
  • Physical Address
Interface Statistics
  • Interface Index
  • In Total Bytes
  • Out Total Bytes

These metrics are polled via a batch request. Polling additional metrics would require additional requests and might result in exceeding the API requests limit. See details on Aruba Central Polling request.

Requirements

Limitations

  • Aruba Central has a limit of 5,000 API calls per day. As a consequence:

    • 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.

    • Utilization metrics are not collected - Utilization requests are too expensive request wise and could easily drain the daily limit of 5000 requests, and thus are not collected.

    • When the daily limit of requests is reached, non-status polling stops. You can see an event and an error in the Aruba Central log.

      See Request frequency and limits and Manage API rate limits

  • If you have SSO enabled, create the token for accessing Aruba Central’s REST API using the offline approach. Then, refresh the token API used in your automated workflows. See Obtaining Token Using Offline Token Mechanism in Aruba documentation.

Before you begin

Prepare your Aruba Central customer and client details. You will need this information when adding your Aruba Central infrastructure for monitoring.

Log in to the Aruba Central management console and gather the following details:

  • Customer ID
  • Username and password
  • Client ID
  • Client Secret
  • Base URL

See Aruba Central API for details about where to find the details.

Add Aruba Central infrastructure to NPM

  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.

    The Polling Hostname or IP Address is disabled and arubanetworks.com is used as the default host name.

  4. Select Aruba Central Devices and provide the required information. Log in to the Aruba Management Console to find out the following details:

    • Customer ID
    • Username
    • Password
    • Client ID
    • Client Secret
    • Base URL

    These details are necessary to load groups.

  5. If you have multiple groups in Aruba Central, click Get Groups, and select a group. If you have only one group, it is selected by default.

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

  6. Specify what you want to poll for Aruba Central devices. Select or clear the following boxes to regulate the number of API requests and mitigate the rate limit for Aruba Central.

    • Enable Topology polling for devices managed as API-only nodes: Enable this to poll LLDP data required for topology calculation from Aruba Central switches/wireless
    • Enable polling for Wireless devices: Enable/disable to poll wireless access points
    • Enable Interface(s) status and statistics polling for API Only Monitored Switch Nodes: Enable or disable polling for switch interface (ports) status and statistics.
    • Enable Interface(s) status and statistics polling for API Only Monitored Wireless Nodes: Enable or disable polling for wireless interface (ports) status and statistics.

  7. Review and adjust the device properties.

    1. Review your Aruba Central user and client details, as well as proxy settings.

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

      Aruba Central supports 5000 requests a day. This limit is relevant for the value in Collect Statistics Every field. A single poll might require up to 4 requests, be aware that if you poll statistics more frequently than the default settings or if NPM is not the only piece of software using the requests, you might get gaps in data when the daily limit is exceeded. See Aruba Central API Gateway for details about the Aruba API calls per day limit.

    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 Aruba Central nodes might be 1-2 seconds. Consider adjusting the thresholds accordingly.

  8. Click OK, Add Node.

The Aruba Central 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 ArubaCentral Cloud Orchestrator.

Add Aruba devices connected to the orchestrator

When you have added the orchestrator for monitoring, you need to add switches and wireless devices you want to monitor.

  1. In SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > Manage Nodes.

  2. On the Manage Nodes view, click the added orchestrator node.

  3. On the Orchestrator Details view, click Discover ArubaCentral Devices in the Management widget.

  4. On the Request Hostnames and APIs, select what you want to add and click Continue. Hostnames and IP addresses for selected devices are collected.

  5. Complete the wizard by clicking Discover on the last tab. The wizard discovers the ArubaCentral devices connected to the orchestrator.

    SolarWinds recommends that you do not monitor VoIP interfaces or NULL interfaces.

  6. Discovered devices are listed in the Network Sonar Results wizard. Complete the wizard to add devices for monitoring.

When you finish the wizard, you can see the added switches/wireless devices on the Manage Nodes view, added as nodes.

Orchestrator Inventory

You can see the list of ArubaCentral devices connected to managed orchestrators in the Orchestrator Inventory widget. Devices managed by SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted are marked in the Managed by Platform column.

To add unmanaged devices, click the Discover ArubaCentral Devices button and add the devices for monitoring.

Request frequency and limits

The total number of requests per day can be calculated by multiplying requests per poll, the number of polls requested per hour and the number of hours in a day.

In formula terms:

Total requests per day = Requests per poll * Polls per hour * Hours per day

The per-day requests below are calculated under the assumption that no pagination occurs. If you have pagination set up, each page counts as a request.

Request frequency and limits

Requests Value Recommendation Notes
Aruba Central daily requests 5,000 requests per day   Reset at midnight GMT
Status Poll request quota 1 request per poll 600 seconds by default 1*6*24=144 requests per day
Stats Collection Requests 4 requests per poll 30 mins by default 4*2*24=192 requests per day
Device Status Collection Requests 2 requests per poll 10 mins by default 2*6*24=288 requests per day
Device Response Time Collection 2 requests per poll 10 minutes by default 2*6*24=288 requests per day
CPU Memory Collection 2 requests per poll 30 minutes by default 2*2*24=96 requests per day
Device details Collection 2 requests per poll 30 minutes by default 2*2*24=96 requests per day
IP Address Collection 2 requests per poll 30 minutes by default 2*2*24=96 requests per day
Orchestrator Inventory Collection 2 requests per poll 30 minutes by default 2*2*24=96 requests per day
Topology Collection 3 requests per poll 120 minutes by default 3*0.5*24=36 requests per day
Interfaces Status Poll 2 requests per poll switches: 10 minutes by default 2*6*24=288 requests per day
Wireless Status Poll   10 minutes by default 2*6*24=288 requests per day.
Interfaces Stats Poll 1 request per poll 5 minutes by default 1*12*24=288 requests per day
Wireless Stats Collection   10 minutes by default 1*6*24=144 requests per day.
Interfaces Rediscovery Poll 1 request per poll Switches: 240 minutes by default 1*0.25*24=6 requests per day
Wireless Stats Collection   240 minutes by default 1*0.25*24=6 requests per day.
Interfaces Status Poll

2 requests per poll

Switches: 10 minutes by default

 2*6*24=288 requests per day
Wireless Stats Collection   10 minutes by default 1*6*24=144 requests per day

API calls used for polling wireless access points

API request Purpose
/oauth2/authorize/central/api/login Login and status poller
/oauth2/authorize/central/api Obtaining an authorization code
/oauth2/token Acquiring or refreshing the access token
/monitoring/v2/aps Statistics collection poller - gets information on APs and wireless interfaces.
/monitoring/v1/clients/wireless Statistics collection poller - gets information on clients.
/rapids/v1/rogue_aps Statistics collection poller - gets information on AP rogues
/monitoring/v2/bssids Statistics collection poller - gets information on SSIDs
/configuration/v2/groups Adding or editing node's “Get Groups”
/monitoring/v1/switches List Switches
/monitoring/v1/switches/${DeviceSerial}/ports Statistics collection poller - gets information on AP rogues
/monitoring/v3/aps/bandwidth_usage Get the average bandwidth usage for access points over a time
/monitoring/v1/aps/${DeviceSerial} Get AP details
/topology_external_api/${SiteId} Get LLDP data required for topology calculation
/monitoring/v1/switches/${DeviceSerial}/ports Get Port details
/monitoring/v1/switches/${DeviceSerial}/vlan Get VLan details

Manage API rate limits

Due to the Aruba Central rate limit of 5,000 API calls per day, polling for switch interfaces (ports) and wireless interfaces (ports) status and statistics may exceed the daily threshold.

To mitigate this, specify what you want to poll and how frequently:

  • Enable or disable polling interface status or statistics.
  • Customize polling intervals for polling interface data (globally or for individual devices)
  • Customize the orchestrator polling interval.

Enable/Disable interface status/statistics pollers

Select checkboxes to regulate the number of API request and mitigate the rate limit for Aruba Central.

  • Enable Topology polling for devices managed as API-only nodes: Enable this to poll LLDP data required for topology calculation from Aruba Central switches/wireless
  • Enable polling for Wireless devices: Enable/disable to poll wireless access points
  • Enable Interface(s) status and statistics polling for API Only Monitored Switch Nodes: Enable or disable polling for switch interface (ports) status and statistics.
  • Enable Interface(s) status and statistics polling for API Only Monitored Wireless Nodes: Enable or disable polling for wireless interface (ports) status and statistics.

Customize Aruba Central interface poller intervals

New polling intervals settings to override default poll intervals for Aruba Central pollers in order to decrease data collection frequency and help overcome API rate limit issues.

The interface status and statistics poller intervals are applied only if the respective pollers are enabled. To enable/disable pollers, see Enable/Disable interface status/statistics pollers.

Global Polling Settings

Define global settings for interface status/statistics/rediscovery polling that apply to both switches and access points (APs).

  1. In the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, click Settings > All Settings > Polling Settings.

  2. On Polling settings, find the Aruba Central section, and specify polling intervals.

  3. Submit your changes.

Specify polling settings for individual devices

You can override global polling settings for individual switches and AP.

  1. Click Settings > Manage Nodes.

  2. Find the switch/AP you want to edit.

  3. Click Edit.

  4. Scroll down to ArubaCentral settings, select the Override global value for the polling interval you want to change, and provide the required polling interval.

  5. Submit your changes.

Your changes are applied. If a box is selected, the globally set polling interval for this device is overriden with your entry. If the box is cleared, the global polling settings are used for polling the device.

Modify Aruba Central orchestrator polling intervals

By default, the node status polling is set to 600 secs (10 mins) and statistics collection to 30 mins. You can modify these polling settings when adding or editing the orchestrator node.

  1. Click Settings > Manage Nodes.

  2. Find the orchestrator you want to edit.

  3. Click Edit Properties.

  4. Scroll down to Polling and adjust the frequency for polling node status and statistics.

  5. Submit your changes.

Troubleshooting

To help diagnose and resolve issues with Aruba Central devices in NPM, configure logging level for relevant logs. In th Log Adjuster, set the recommended level for individual logs. See Adjust logging levels with the Log Adjuster for details.

Logs for Logs include Default log path Recommended logging level
Declarative Wireless Collector Details on processing wireless data C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\Orion\Wireless\Declarative\Wireless.Declarative.PollersJobs_[#####].log WARNING
Collector Service Details on processing of polled data and storing into the DB by collector C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Collector\Logs\Collector.Service.log ERROR
Interfaces Collector Details about the interface collector C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\Orion\Interfaces\Interfaces.Collector.Jobs_[%processid].log WARNING
Core Poller Details of poller execution of API requests and core jobs C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\Orion\Core.Collector.Jobs_[%processid].log ERROR