Network Management

Orion Platform 2018.2 feature: Orion Maps

Orion Maps provides a contextual and graphical depiction of groups or entities such as network devices, servers, interfaces, volumes, and more. It visualizes physical and logical relationships between entities, leveraging Network Performance Monitor’s Topology, Server & Application Monitor Application Dependencies, and other relationship information to quickly isolate and identify critical health and performance issues easily.

First published date

2/21/2019 5:45 PM

Last published date

6/19/2023 2:23 PM

Overview

Orion Maps is an advanced troubleshooting tool that provides a contextual and graphical portrayal of an entity, including nodes, interfaces, volumes, and groups, and its critical relationships. It visualizes physical and logical relationships between entities, leveraging Network Performance Monitor’s Topology, Server & Application Monitor Application Dependencies, and other relationship information to quickly isolate and identify critical health and performance issues easily.

Orion Maps display as the Map subview on Details Views for the following entities:

  • Node
  • Interface
  • Volume
  • Virtual Machine
  • Virtual Host
  • Virtual Cluster
  • Virtual Datacenter
  • VCenter
  • Hyper-V Host
  • Hyper-V Cluster
  • WPM Step
  • WPM Transaction
  • WPM Player Location
  • Group

Product section

Orion Platform

Resolution

Map canvas 

Maps appear on a canvas, focusing on the seed entity from which you came. Each map is interactive, and hovering over or clicking any element of a map brings that entity and its relationships to the forefront.


Zoom, pan, and change map layout 

The initial view of each map focuses on the seed entity. To view entities and groups in greater or less detail, you can zoom in and out of the map. You can also drag the map around to an entity, group, or connection.

Each map is automatically generated, and you can toggle between two layouts by clicking the Change Layout button in the bottom-right corner of the canvas. This option organizes the entities, groups, and connections differently, allowing you to choose whichever layout you prefer. 


The Inspector Panel 

When you select an entity, such as a node, the Inspector Panel appears on the right side of the canvas. It shows the name of the device, IP, Vendor, and Machine Type, along with a list of the entity's children or decedents.


View Orion dependencies 

Orion Maps also display dependencies  defined in your Orion Platform products. These relations do not represent data traversing between the entities, and so the connections are highlighted with a dashed line.


View Application Dependency Mapping (ADM) connections (SAM) 

View application dependencies on maps according to your Application Connection Settings.

View TCP latency and packet loss between entities (Connection Quality Polling enabled) 


See only the relationship depicted by a line (without enabling the Connection Quality) 

Without the Connection Quality Polling enabled, the Inspector Panel does not display further information. To see more details, click an entity to access the Connection Details page.


View topology connections (NPM) 

The width of topology connections is based on interface bandwidth so that you can easily determine differences across the map. For example, 10 GB links are visibly wider than 100 Mb links.

Hover over a connection to display a tool-tip.

By default, metric pills in the connections display outbound traffic and utilization on either side of the connection. The colors change according to the thresholds set in NPM (yellow for breaching the warning threshold, or red for the critical threshold).

The Inspector Panel displays all connections between the entities, with additional details, such as traffic, errors and discards, utilization, and the maximum bandwidth.


View Orion groups 

On the Map subview for Orion groups , you can see the group members and any connections that exist between the member objects in the group.

When you define your groups using dynamic queries, the Map subview automatically adds or removes group members according to the results returned by the query.


Known issues 

  • Orion Maps only work with the default device type view template.
  • Orion Maps do not provide SRM entity ancestry.
  • Orion Maps do not display VMware data-stores.
  • Orion Maps displayed in Internet Explorer 11 might have issues with displaying icons.
  • Orion Maps may experience hover and muting issues in systems that do not have access to hardware acceleration.