Which switches should we monitor with ExtremeAnalytics and what ports?

[Stephen_Stormon]

In each of our offices we have a x460G2 at the core and then a number of x440G2 switches uplinked to that which are used for PCs and VOIP.

At each of our colocation facilities, we have 4 x 695s and 3 x 5520s.  Our external internet connects to one of the x695s, the MPLS network that connects the colos and the two offices connects to another x695, and a P2P that directly connects the colos connects to the other x695.

The 4 x 695s are all connected via a tiered MLAG setup.  Should we just monitor the ports that uplink switches to another site or should we monitor all ports on all switches?  We also have a number of VMware servers that I know we will need to setup the Virtual Sensor for.

[Zdeněk_Pala]

Hi Stephen.

based on those switch families you mentioned I expect you are running EXOS on all those switches. I recommend enabling analytics on all ports where the traffic can enter your network. When you add the EXOS switch as a Telemetry source and your CLI credentials are working and RW then ExtremeCloud IQ - Site Engine configures the EXOS switch for you automatically. The team is working on an updated Analytics Deployment Guide, the new PDF should be available in 2nd half of February 2023. If you are interested, let me know. 

Sincerely yours

[Stephen_Stormon]

Yes, we are using EXOS on all the switches and we do have CLI credentials working and used Site Engine to enable telemetry on the various switches, but it enabled it on every port that is active.  Taking one of our offices for example, it sounds like we only need to enable the port connected to the MPLS network.  At this point, how do we now remove all of the other ports on that switch from Analytics?  And what it the best way to enable Analytics on the other switches via Site Engine without enabling it on all active ports?

[Zdeněk_Pala]

Please elaborate why do you want to disable analytics on some ports?

The Analytics Engine must see both directions of the flow. The switch sends only ingress traffic to the Analytics Engine. If the other direction of the traffic is received from other switch then the result is sub-optimal. There is some enhancement is planned for 23.2.10 release.

It is recommended to enable Extreme Analytics on all ports.

[Zdeněk_Pala]

On the EXOS there are two pieces configured for ExtremeAnalytics:

• ACL = telemetry.pol
• sFlow

If some ports needs to be excluded then both (ACL and sFLow) should be modified. But as mentioned the result will be suboptimal.