Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN — vEdge devices

When you enable SD-WAN monitoring on your Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN orchestrators, you can monitor orchestrators, edge devices, and their interfaces polled via API. You can use alerts and reports relevant to SD-WAN monitoring.

Previously added vEdge devices can still be polled via SNMP when you select SNMP+API as the polling method.

Monitor SD-WAN edge devices

Add edge devices managed by a monitored orchestrator to view additional details via API.

• You can view general information, such as edge device name, model, serial number, status, or type.
• You can view all IP addresses for a specific SD-WAN device and properly match IPs received in NetFlow data to the node.
• You can monitor uplinks (WAN interfaces).
• For edge devices, you can monitor additional details, such as status, response time, CPU/memory using API-only monitoring.
• For edge device interfaces, you can monitor details such as status, traffic, or other general information API-only monitoring.

Monitor orchestrators

• You can view status and response time, polled via REST (Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager API, formerly the Viptela/vManage API).
• You can view the list of all devices managed by an orchestrator and add edge devices in a simplified discovery.

Monitor VPN tunnels

VPN tunnel names are created as follows:

{Source Interface Name} → {Peer System IP / Device ID}:{Peer Interface IP}

Viptela SD-WAN setup and monitoring steps

Before you begin

Review what data you can monitor for individual entities and the API rate limits that may affect polling.

License requirements

• Each monitored edge consumes one node license.

Polling options for edge devices

SNMP+API (mixed polling)

This method was used in earlier versions.

Uses the orchestrator API to collect SD-WAN data, such as tunnel details, and SNMP to collect edge device and interface details.

Use this method if SNMP is configured on edge devices.

API-only polling

Uses orchestrator API to poll all available metrics, including data previously collected via SNMP.

Use this method if SNMP is not configured.

Monitored metrics

SD-WAN metrics

• Orchestrator inventory and status
• General edge device information
• Edge device uplinks (WAN interfaces)
• VPN tunnels
• VPN tunnel metrics

API-only metrics for edge devices

• Device details information (name, model, contact, location, MAC addresses etc.)
• Device status and response time
• CPU/Memory information
• IP addresses
• Hardware information (manufacturer, model, service tag)

API-only metrics for edge interfaces

• General interface information (name, type, speed, MTU, mode etc.)
• Interface status
• Traffic data (packets/bytes sent/received)

SNMP-polled metrics for nodes (mixed SNMP+API monitoring)

• Details via Device Studio ​
• ICMP and SNMP Status and response time​
• SNMP uptime​

SNMP-polled metrics for interfaces (mixed SNMP+API monitoring)

• Details
• Status / availability
• Errors & discards
• Traffic
• Percent utilization (regular and real time)​

API rate limits

• Each orchestrator is limited to 100 requests/second.

• By default, SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted polling is limited to 50 requests/second. For details, see API polling limit was exceeded.

Add new SD-WAN devices for monitoring in SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted

To monitor SD-WAN, add the orchestrator as a node, and then add edge devices.

Add an orchestrator

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

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

3. Provide the orchestrator hostname or IP address.

4. In Polling Method, select Orchestrators: API.

5. Under Orchestrators, select Viptela Devices.

6. Type your Viptela credentials into Username and Password fields and test the credentials.

   Certificate note

   Cisco vManage may use a self‑signed certificate by default. You can accept the certificate, but SolarWinds recommends installing a certificate signed by a trusted CA.

7. Review and adjust the device properties, credentials, proxy settings, and polling intervals.

8. (Optional): Configure custom properties and alert thresholds.

9. Click OK, Add Node.

The added device is now monitored as an SD-WAN orchestrator. Add connected devices to complete the SD-WAN configuration.

Add devices connected to the orchestrator

When you have added the orchestrator for monitoring, add the edge devices you want to monitor.

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

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

3. On the SD-WAN Orchestrator Details view, click Discover Viptela Devices in the Management widget.

4. On Select How To Monitor Edge Devices, select a monitoring method and click Continue. See SNMP or API-based monitoring for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN orchestrators (formerly Viptela) for details.

   • Use a combination of SNMP and API polling
   • Use API polling only

   If you are on an earlier version, select what you want to monitor on Viptela devices.

   • vEdge
   • cEdge
   • vSmart

5. If you selected Use combination of SNMP and API, complete the following steps.

   1. In Network Sonar Discovery, review the hostnames and IP addresses received from the orchestrator. Include only the devices you want to monitor and click Next.

   2. On SNMP, verify that SNMP credentials for the devices are listed and click Next. If appropriate credentials are not listed, click Add New Credential, and define a new set.

6. If you selected Use API only polling, review the selected orchestrator.

7. Complete the wizard by clicking Discover on the last tab. The wizard searches your network for the hostnames/IP addresses.

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

When you finish the wizard, go to the SD-WAN Orchestrator Details page (Settings > Manage Nodes > click the orchestrator node). After the next poll, the page will display data not only for the orchestrator, but also for monitored edge devices.

Configure SD-WAN monitoring on edge devices already monitored with SolarWinds Platform

If you monitored SD-WAN edge devices in a previous version using SNMP and upgraded to SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted, add the orchestrator to automatically pair the devices with the orchestrator.

View SD-WAN data for your environment

When SD-WAN monitoring is enabled, selecting the orchestrator opens the SD-WAN Orchestrator Summary view.

By default, this page includes widgets you can use to manage the device, view the device details, active alerts, latest events, or AppStack for the device.

Edge Devices

This widget lists device names, IP addresses, models, serial numbers and network IDs of edge devices paired with the orchestrator.

Orchestrator Inventory

This widget displays a list of devices connected to managed orchestrators. Devices managed by SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted are marked in the Managed by Platform column.

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

SD-WAN Map

This widget is available on Orchestrator views. It displays connections between monitored devices on the network. For directly connected devices, you can also see used interfaces.

Top Tunnels

VPN Connections

On SD-WAN Orchestrator views, this widget displays VPN tunnels for all edges paired with the orchestrator.

On an edge Node Details view, the widget displays VPN tunnels for the edge.

This widget is not displayed by default. See Add widgets to SolarWinds Platform views.

VPN Tunnels

On SD-WAN Orchestrator views, this widget displays VPN tunnels and their metrics for all edges paired with the orchestrator.

On an edge Node Details view, the widget displays VPN tunnels and their metrics for the edge.

WAN UpLinks