Problem Description

Our client is a Boston based company who provides modern monitoring and analytics solutions that organizations need to monitor their networks. They called Allata to help gather requirements from one of their customers.

We came in contact with the customer, assessed the situation and found that there were devices from different vendors connected to the network. These devices generated metrics concerning the number of active clients, and the customer wanted to generate those same metrics from every device and into a series of reports in the same fashion the other vendors were doing.

Implemented Solution

Allata had to work from our client’s instances to collect the metrics because there was a restriction to modify or edit the devices’ behavior. The solution Allata implemented required developing a way to connect to all the existing devices and run commands in each of them to gather the information needed, parse the output of these commands, transform and aggregate to be ingested into the client’s platform.

They already had mechanisms for ingesting data in their environment, so Allata used these to send metrics over this platform.

The solution consisted of a set of scripts that execute different commands in devices listed in the configuration file. These commands run remotely in every device and generate an output that can be processed. The collected information is then parsed, categorized, aggregated, and ingested into the client’s platform as a DOI metric (device, object, and indicator). These scripts were adapted to run periodically, so they could be used to generate time-based reports.

Anticipating the customer needs to add new devices from which to collect this metric in the future, the solution provided was designed to be easily configurable to support modifying or adding new devices. The configuration also included a few variables to allow everyone to customize additional settings like an output folder that stored the generated files.

Allata provided documentation both in English, for the client’s benefit, and in Spanish, for the end customer. The customer can also set up the solution thanks to Allata’s provision of a video tutorial on the deployment and configuration.

Benefits

After collaborating with Allata on the design of a system that complied with the requirements and standards, the solution was implemented and documented, before handing it over to the customer.

Allata produced and included a video tutorial for both the client and the end customer to be able to replicate the solution, deploy, configure it, and add additional devices when needed.