Monitoring of Czech weather radar network CZRAD Hana Kyznarová, CHMI, radar dept. Introduction • Monitoring of radar systems, but also of radar data flow and availability and status of the servers processing radar data done by radar dpt. • Two ways of monitoring: – Operator level: Operators from dept. of aerology doing manual monitoring of quality of the radar data, their availability and availability of radars and servers – Specialist level: monitoring of radar status and radar data processing servers done by employees of radar dept. Operator level monitoring • done 24/7 by operators of professional meteorological station placed in the same location as CHMI radar dept. • Application for monitoring prepared in radar dpt. • Basic checks by operators done every hour –strong RLAN disturbance, increase of noise, ground clutter • Training once a year or when necessary ‐ after introduction of new features Specialist level monitoring • Done by employees of radar dept. • Standard monitoring data available in IRIS/RDA, bitex utility but their display not Tools: always easy (short history, sometimes • Vaisala IRIS/RDA, BITE, problems with accessibility from outside bitex CHMI, use of smartphone for monitoring is • SNMP protocol, Icinga2 problematic, not sending alerts via sms, (open source) mail) • Additional modules • We used Icinga, Nagios, Cacti in the past (pnp4nagios)/scripts only for server, network devices and (bash, python, php) environment sensors monitoring (radar which extend monitoring in these application limited to functionality of the testing response to ping), after radar main tools upgrade to Vaisala WRM200 in 2015 extended monitoring also to radar BITE values SNMP protocol overview • Simple Network Management Protocol • Common protocol for network monitoring • Developed for monitoring network devices (router, switch, printer, IP cam,…) and servers • SNMP uses OIDs (Object Identifier) contained in MIB (Management Information Base) its structure defined by RFC2578 (available on IETF website) • Active checks x passive checks (SNMP traps = agent send SNMP info after reaching predefined condition) • Possibility to define custom OIDs SNMP support by radar systems is useful – enables monitoring in one application independently from radar manufacturers –differences between monitoring applications from different manufacturers become more transparent (not only) SNMP monitoring tools • Various tools using SNMP Nagios for monitoring and warning – Nagios, (its fork Icinga, Naemon), Icinga2 Zabbix • monitoring not only via SNMP, but also ping, network services (HTTP, SMTP, SSH, FTP,…) • They offer possibility to various extent to monitor requested values, their history, issue warnings • Possible to install plugins • send info to 3rd party sw Zabbix CZRAD monitoring data flow • Vaisala radar systems cannot communicate via SNMP => bite_export (standard part of IRIS/RDA from 8.13.6 version) converts values of BITE variables into .txt file • SNMP agent – “extend” directive –SNMP manager requests values of custom defined OIDs defined by the result of running custom program/scripts • Communication using SNMP with monitoring server (Icinga2 manages SNMP requests) Server processing Radar Brdy – monitored data IRIS/RDA,bitex Icinga2 (monitoring Users of BITE, SNMP agent, (SNMP, ping), web, monitoring data additional tools sms, mail), additional scripts, pnp4nagios Routers,… Servers processing Radar Skalky – radar data Users of radar data IRIS/RDA,bitex SNMP agent1, SNMP products BITE, SNMP agent, agent2, SNMP agent additional tools 3,… Monitoring of radar status • bite_export utility exports values of BITE variables into .txt file in predefined time intervals (currently 30s – insufficient for some variables) • The load for the radar system with more frequent exports may be too high • This may not be a problem for the radars wit native SNMP support – Selex?, EEC? Monitoring of radar status • Currently we monitor mainly only standard BITE variables • Extended temperature monitoring • Monitoring of Zdr offset and PhiDP offset is currently under preparation • More in the poster of Petr Novák Monitoring of temperature Monitoring ZDR offset • The only temperature sensor provided by Zdrcal runs every hour (Icinga2 stores computed Zdr Vaisala is in dehydrator, offset, warning: old‐new offset diff > 0.3). which doesn’t represent well the temperature inside the case • Stable temperature important for quality of rad.measurements Monitoring of status of servers processing radar data • Server, router availability (ping) • Various SNMP requests: – use of disk – RAID status – memory use, load – fan status – uptime – System, CPU temperature,… – Possible to use scripts for specific monitoring (e.g. sw RAID) ToDo list • Adding other parameters to the currently monitored parameters (monitoring of radar status (ingest, service mode,…) • Monitoring/changing of Zdr offset, PhiDP offset • What is the best way to monitor rapidly changing parameters? • more thorough monitoring of radar data flow • Better graphical output for timelines of monitored parameters (graphite plugin?) Thank you for your attention.