Introduction

DNS Monitoring provides complete visibility of the organization’s DNS infrastructure. It serves the purpose of constantly examining the performance and availability of the DNS appliances in real-time. It provides in-depth monitoring by keeping track of various performance metrics such as response time and availability status and immediately notifies you in the event of downtime. This white paper provides insights on one of the monitoring services features – Flap Detection.

Flap Detection

TCPWave IPAM supports the Flap Detection of service: An alert is checked for three times if a critical alert is detected in the interval of 20 seconds.

Figure 1: TCPWave IPAM Flap Detection

Workflow

To enable Flap Detection:

• Navigate to Infrastructure Management >> Fault Management >> Monitoring Services.
• Click on any of the monitoring services.
• Under the Properties page, select Enable Flap Detection check-box.
• By default, the system displays the unselected check-box. If the check-box is selected, the system enables flap detection for the selected service. The following is the workflow of the flap detection for the specified monitored service:
  • If the system generates a critical alert for the first time, the flap detection waits for 20 seconds. On completion of 20 seconds, if the system did not generate a critical alert, then the system does not further investigate the detection and sends an OK alert.
  • Suppose the system generates a critical alert for the first time, and the system again detects the critical alert for the selected service after 20 seconds. In that case, the system further investigates detection after 20 seconds and performs the following:
    • If the system generates a critical alert, it sends the alert in the Current Alarms section.
    • If the system does not generate a critical alert, it will not investigate further and sends an OK alert.

Note: The system performs checks every 3 minutes to 5 minutes.

Conclusion

With a powerful monitoring engine embedded as a vital part of the TCPWave IPAM, organizations can improve their service level agreements and keep their mission-critical services up and running. For a quick demo of the Flap Detection feature, contact the TCPWave Sales Team.