Contrail Insights Flows in Contrail Command
These topics describe how to configure Contrail Insights Flows from Contrail Command.
Configuring Contrail Insights Flows from Contrail Command
Starting with Contrail Networking Release 1910, Contrail Insights Flows is integrated in the Contrail Command UI. Contrail Insights Flows enables you to view telemetry information for the devices in a Contrail-managed data center fabric. With the addition of this feature, Contrail Command acts as a single pane of glass where you can access the features of both Contrail Networking and telemetry feature of Contrail Insights, providing you a unified telemetry experience.
For Contrail Networking Release 1910, the flow collector provisioning
is disabled by default in the provisioning wizard. To enable flow
collector provisioning, log in to the contrail_command container
and edit the /usr/share/contrail/public/feature-list.json file. Set the value for cluster_user.xflow to true.
In Contrail Networking Release 1911 and later, the flow collector provisioning is enabled by default.
Contrail Networking Release 1911 supports provisioning of both in-band and out-of-band collectors. You can configure Contrail Insights Flows during initial setup, during fabric onboarding, or by creating and assigning telemetry and sFlow profiles to devices. For more information about configuring Contrail Insights Flows during Contrail Command installation, see Installing Contrail Insights and Contrail Insights Flows using Contrail Command in the Contrail Installation and Upgrade Guide.
Configuring Contrail Insights Flows During Fabric Onboarding
You use this procedure to provision an In-Band collector during the fabric onboarding workflow. Here, the information that you entered during initial setup is displayed and you can specify the Device Port that you want to associate with the flow collector.
When you click Next, configuration similar to the following is pushed to the device:
set groups __contrail_underlay_infra_bms_access interfaces xe-0/0/2 unit 0 family ethernet-switching vlan members elemetry_infra_network_ipam-vlan set groups __contrail_underlay_infra_bms_access interfaces xe-0/0/47 unit 0 family ethernet-switching vlan members elemetry_infra_network_ipam-vlan set groups __contrail_underlay_infra_bms_access interfaces irb unit 11 family inet address 30.1.1.1/24 set groups __contrail_underlay_infra_bms_access vlans elemetry_infra_network_ipam-vlan vlan-id 11 set groups __contrail_underlay_infra_bms_access vlans elemetry_infra_network_ipam-vlan l3-interface irb.11
After fabric provisioning is complete, you can view the flow data from the Infrastructure > Fabrics > Fabric Name > Topology View page.
Configuring Contrail Insights Flows by Assigning Telemetry and sFlow Profiles to Devices
This topic describes how to provision Contrail Insights Flows and assign telemetry profiles after setting up Contrail Command and discovering devices.
The benefit of assigning telemetry profiles is that you can monitor the health of different devices and their interfaces from Contrail Command after the telemetry profile gets configured on these devices.
If telemetry profiles are not configured, there will be “No data” for the “top talkers” in the Contrail Command Top-N-View. See Top N View in Contrail Command.
After Contrail Command is set up and devices are discovered, you can attach telemetry profiles to devices. You can attach only one telemetry profile per device. Each telemetry profile is linked to sub-profile(s). The telemetry profile can contain all types of sub-profiles but only one instance each of the sFlow, gRPC, Netconf, or SNMP sub-profiles. You can either link a telemetry profile to an existing sub-profile or create a new sub-profile while creating the telemetry profile.
Default sFlow profiles and telemetry profiles are predefined in the system when you bring up the cluster. You cannot edit or delete these default profiles. However, you can create custom profiles and associate them to the telemetry profile.
The sFlow monitoring technology collects samples of network packets and sends them to a monitoring station called a collector. The sFlow technology implements two sampling mechanisms:
Packet-based sampling—Samples one packet out of a specified number of packets from an interface enabled for sFlow technology.
Time-based sampling—Samples interface statistics (counters) at a specified interval from an interface enabled for sFlow technology.
Contrail Networking Release 2011 supports gRPC, Netconf, and SNMP protocol-based telemetry profiles. Contrail Insights collects key performance indicators (KPIs) from network devices using preconfigured values to monitor the fabric health.
To view the health of your fabric devices, ports, and any alerts associated with exceeding KPI thresholds, navigate to Infrastructure > Fabrics > <Fabric Name>.
The default sFlow telemetry profiles are:
sflow-access-interfaces—Indicates that sFlow is enabled on all the access interfaces on the device.
sflow-fabric-interfaces—Indicates that sFlow is enabled on all the fabric interfaces.
sflow-all-interfaces—Indicates that sFlow is enabled on all the interfaces on the device that has an sFlow profile attached to it.
The default protocol-based telemetry profiles are:
grpc-default-profile—Indicates that the health parameters for health/environment, interface, and control plane sensors are enabled for monitoring. This profile includes an Allowed Clients List with a default value of
0.0.0.0/0. See Figure 7 and Table 2.netconf-default-profile—Indicates that the health parameters for health/environment, interface, and control plane sensors are enabled for monitoring.
snmp-default-profile—Indicates that the health parameters for health/environment, interface, and control plane sensors are enabled for monitoring.
You can apply default profiles to network devices and generate alerts based on predefined KPIs and preconfigured alert generation rules.
To create a telemetry profile:
- Click the Telemetry Profiles tab.Figure 3: Telemetry Profiles Tab
Click profile tabs (sFlow, GRPC, Netconf, SNMP) to view existing profiles.
- Click Create to define a new telemetry profile.
You can assign one or more profiles to the telemetry profile by selecting existing profiles from the list(s). You can create new profile(s) by clicking Create New and then assign it to the telemetry profile.
Figure 4 shows assigning an existing sFlow profile. Mouse over the sFlow name to view the profile details.
Figure 4: Assign an Existing sFlow Profile
Figure 5: Assign an Existing gRPC Profile
- (Optional) Click Create New next to the profile
fields to create a new profile.
Figure 6 shows an example of creating a sFlow profile.
Figure 6: Create New sFlow Profile
Table 1: sFlow Profile Fields Field
Description
Profile Name
Enter a name for the profile you are creating.
Sample Rate
The configured number of egress or ingress packets out of which one packet is sampled. For example, with the default sample rate of 2000, meaning one packet out of 2000, is sampled.
Polling Interval (second)
Configure the interval (in seconds) that the device waits between port statistics update messages. Default should be set to 0 (recommended).
Adaptive Sample Rate
Process of monitoring the overall incoming traffic rate on the network device and providing intelligent feedback to interfaces to dynamically adapt the sampling rates on interfaces on the basis of traffic conditions. The default is one out of every 300 packets.
Sampling Direction
Packets are sampled either at the ingress or egress interfaces for a given network path flow.
Applicable Interfaces Type
Select the type of interface you want to monitor.
Configure a gRPC, Netconf, or SNMP profile to monitor the health of your network and generate alarms to identify any anomalies. Alarms are generated based on the collected metrics and preconfigured thresholds in the alarm rules.
Figure 7 shows an example of creating a gRPC profile.
Figure 7: Create New gRPC Profile
Table 2: gRPC, Netconf, and SNMP Profile Fields Field
Description
Profile Name
Enter a name for the gRPC, Netconf, or SNMP profile you are creating.
Health Parameters
Physical/Environmental
Interface
Control Plane
Mouse over the ? to view a table listing the applicable sensors, commands, or MIBs for physical/environmental, interface, and control plane monitoring. By default, all three settings are On, which is recommended. See Figure 7.
Allowed Client List
Note:This field applies to grpc-default-profile only. Default value is
0.0.0.0/0.Prepopulated subnets are from the Contrail Insights node. Add additional IP addresses (using the CIDR format
1.1.1.1/32) and/or subnets and Enter. You can also copy and paste entries. - Attach new sFlow profile to the telemetry profile.Figure 8: Assign New sFlow Profile to Telemetry Profile
Figure 9: Assign New gRPC Profile to Telemetry Profile
- Select the device or devices for which you want to assign
telemetry profile and click Assign Telemetry Profile as
shown in Figure 10.Figure 10: Assign Telemetry Profile
- Select a telemetry profile from the list and click Ok as shown in Figure 11.Figure 11: Select Telemetry Profile to Assign to Device
The selected telemetry profile is now assigned to the device.
To view the health of your fabric, navigate to Infrastructure > Fabrics > <Fabric Name>.
Removing a Telemetry Profile
To remove a telemetry profile assigned to a device:
- Click Remove Telemetry Profile as shown in Figure 12.Figure 12: Remove Telemetry Profile
- Click Confirm to remove the telemetry profile
attached to the device.Figure 13: Confirm Removing Telemetry Profile
