Network Connectivity provides an assurance that devices under management are reachable and running, using Ping tests. Ping is a software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an IP network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination device that are echoed back to the source.
IT departments and Service Providers typically detect issues by listening for SNMP Traps. But what happens if a network or power issue prevents the delivery of Traps? In this situation, a mission-critical application can be down yet no alarms have been raised. For this reason we recommend you configure Ping tests for all devices under management.
Ping tests can be used as a simple keep-alive, providing assurance that devices under management are reachable and the OS is running. If Ping tests don t meet certain performance criteria, an alarm is raised via configurable Threshold:
- Ping round-trip maximum time
- Ping round-trip average time
- Ping packets lost
In this example maximum Ping times are on the high side (circa 80-90 mSec) with occasional ping packet loss occurring. Real time applications such as voice and video will struggle at times when using this device. When referring to the Media Gateway Timeout report, the period of 100% packet loss below aligns perfectly with H.248 issues and the link bounce, which is service-impacting.
Video Overview