SNMP Trap and ServiceNow Integration

Input and output integration overview

The SNMP Trap Telegraf plugin enables the receipt of SNMP notifications, facilitating comprehensive network monitoring by capturing important events from network devices.

This output plugin streams metrics from Telegraf directly to a ServiceNow MID Server via HTTP, leveraging the nowmetric serializer for efficient integration with ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence and Event Management.

Integration details

SNMP Trap

The SNMP Trap plugin serves as a receiving endpoint for SNMP notifications, known as traps and inform requests. Operating over UDP, it listens for incoming notifications, which can be configured to arrive on a specific port. This plugin is integral to network monitoring and management, allowing systems to collect and respond to SNMP traps sent from various devices across the network, including routers, switches, and servers. The plugin supports secure transmission options through SNMPv3, enabling authentication and encryption parameters to protect sensitive data. Additionally, it gives users the flexibility to configure multiple aspects of SNMP like MIB file locations, making it adaptable for various environments and use cases. Transitioning from the deprecated netsnmp backend to the more current gosmi backend is recommended to leverage its enhanced features and support. Users implementing this plugin can effectively monitor network events, automate responses to traps, and maintain a robust network monitoring infrastructure.

ServiceNow

Telegraf can be used to send metric data directly to a ServiceNow MID Server REST endpoint. Metrics are formatted either using ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence (OI) format or JSONv2 format, enabling seamless integration with ServiceNow’s Event Management and Operational Intelligence platforms. The serializer batches metrics efficiently, reducing network overhead by minimizing the number of HTTP POST requests. This integration allows users to quickly leverage metrics in ServiceNow for enhanced observability, proactive incident management, and performance monitoring, with ServiceNow’s operational intelligence capabilities.

Configuration

SNMP Trap

[[inputs.snmp_trap]]
  ## Transport, local address, and port to listen on.  Transport must
  ## be "udp://".  Omit local address to listen on all interfaces.
  ##   example: "udp://127.0.0.1:1234"
  ##
  ## Special permissions may be required to listen on a port less than
  ## 1024.  See README.md for details
  ##
  # service_address = "udp://:162"
  ##
  ## Path to mib files
  ## Used by the gosmi translator.
  ## To add paths when translating with netsnmp, use the MIBDIRS environment variable
  # path = ["/usr/share/snmp/mibs"]
  ##
  ## Deprecated in 1.20.0; no longer running snmptranslate
  ## Timeout running snmptranslate command
  # timeout = "5s"
  ## Snmp version; one of "1", "2c" or "3".
  # version = "2c"
  ## SNMPv3 authentication and encryption options.
  ##
  ## Security Name.
  # sec_name = "myuser"
  ## Authentication protocol; one of "MD5", "SHA", "SHA224", "SHA256", "SHA384", "SHA512" or "".
  # auth_protocol = "MD5"
  ## Authentication password.
  # auth_password = "pass"
  ## Security Level; one of "noAuthNoPriv", "authNoPriv", or "authPriv".
  # sec_level = "authNoPriv"
  ## Privacy protocol used for encrypted messages; one of "DES", "AES", "AES192", "AES192C", "AES256", "AES256C" or "".
  # priv_protocol = ""
  ## Privacy password used for encrypted messages.
  # priv_password = ""

ServiceNow

[[outputs.http]]
  ## ServiceNow MID Server metrics endpoint
  url = "http://mid-server.example.com:9082/api/mid/sa/metrics"

  ## HTTP request method
  method = "POST"

  ## Basic Authentication credentials
  username = "evt.integration"
  password = "P@$$w0rd!"

  ## Data serialization format for ServiceNow
  data_format = "nowmetric"

  ## Metric format type: "oi" (default) or "jsonv2"
  nowmetric_format = "oi"

  ## HTTP Headers
  [outputs.http.headers]
    Content-Type = "application/json"
    Accept = "application/json"

  ## Optional timeout
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## TLS configuration options
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

Input and output integration examples

SNMP Trap

1. Centralized Network Monitoring: Integrate the SNMP Trap plugin into a centralized monitoring solution to receive alerts about network devices in real-time. By configuring the plugin to listen for traps from various routers and switches, network administrators can swiftly react to issues, such as device outages or critical thresholds being surpassed. This setup enables proactive management and quick resolutions to network problems, ensuring minimal downtime.

2. Automated Incident Response: Use the SNMP Trap plugin to trigger automated incident response workflows whenever specific traps are received. For instance, if a trap indicating a hardware failure is detected, an automated script could be initiated to gather diagnostics, notify support personnel, or even attempt a remediation action. This approach enhances the efficiency of IT operations by reducing manual interference and speeding up response times.

3. Network Performance Analytics: Deploy the SNMP Trap plugin to collect performance metrics along with traps for a comprehensive view of network health. By aggregating this data into analytics platforms, network teams can analyze trends, identify bottlenecks, and optimize performance based on historical data. This allows for informed decision-making and strategic planning around network upgrades or changes.

4. Integrating with Alerting Systems: Connect the SNMP Trap plugin to third-party alerting systems like PagerDuty or Slack. Upon receiving predefined traps, the plugin can send alerts to these systems, enabling teams to be instantly notified of important network events. This integration ensures that the right people are informed at the right time, helping maintain high service levels and quick issue resolution.

ServiceNow

1. Proactive Incident Management: Utilize the Telegraf and ServiceNow integration to stream infrastructure and application metrics in real-time to ServiceNow Event Management. Automatically trigger incidents or remediation workflows based on thresholds, significantly reducing incident detection and response times.

2. End-to-End Application Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across multiple layers of an application stack, sending performance metrics directly into ServiceNow. Leveraging ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence, teams can correlate metrics across components, quickly identifying performance bottlenecks.

3. Dynamic CI Performance Tracking: Integrate Telegraf metrics with ServiceNow’s CMDB by using this plugin to push performance data, allowing automatic updates of Configuration Item (CI) health states based on live metrics. This ensures an accurate and current state of infrastructure health in ServiceNow.

4. Cloud Resource Optimization: Collect metrics from hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures using Telegraf, streaming directly to ServiceNow. Leverage these metrics for real-time analytics, predictive capacity planning, and resource optimization, enabling proactive management and reduced operational costs.

Feedback

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