Creating simple poll policies

Use the Poll Policy Wizard to guide you through the creation of a poll policy; however, you can only use the wizard to create a simple poll policy with a single existing poll definition and limited scoping features.

About this task

Using the Poll Policy Wizard you can create a simple poll policy with the following limited poll definition and scoping features.
  • Single poll definition. You can use a single existing poll definition only.
  • Network views. You can restrict the set of devices to poll to those contained by the selected network views.
    Restriction: The Poll Policy Wizard does not provide a device filter to refine the list of devices selected by the network views.

The Poll Policy Wizard can only create new poll policies. If you want to edit an existing policy, or you require a fully-featured poll policy with multiple poll definitions and full scoping features, then use the Poll Policy Editor.

Procedure

  1. Click the Administration icon and select Network > Network Polling.
  2. Click Launch Poll Configuration Wizard Launch Poll Configuration Wizard button.
  3. Click Next. Complete the Poll Policy Details page as follows:
    Name
    Specify a name for the poll policy. Only alphanumeric characters, spaces and underscores are allowed.
    Interval
    Specify the required interval in seconds between poll operations. Click the arrows to change the value.
    Poll Enabled
    Specify whether the poll should be enabled. The poll is enabled by default. To disable the poll, clear this check box.
    Store Poll Data
    Select this check box to store the poll data so that it can be subsequently retrieved for reporting. The data is stored in the ncpolldata database.
    Restriction: Storage of polled data is not supported for the Cisco Remote Ping, the Juniper Remote Ping, and the Generic Threshold poll definitions.
    Definition
    Select a poll definition from the list.
    V4.2 FixPack 17:Note: If a poll definition supports dynamic indexing, it has a + symbol next to its name.
    Assign to Poller Instance
    Select the poller on which to run the poll policy.
    Policy Throttle
    The number of devices in certain types of network views, especially event-based network views, can fluctuate and become large. In order to prevent the Polling engine, ncp_poller, from become overloaded by large numbers of devices in the network views attached to a policy, you can place a limit on the number of devices attached to a poll policy. This limit is called a policy throttle.
    Specify the maximum number of entities to limit polling to. The poll policy will poll no more than the number of entities specified here.
    Note: Disable policy throttling by setting this value to zero. All new poll policies have policy throttling disabled by default.
  4. Optional: Click Next. On the Poll Policy Scope Details page, select the check boxes of the required network views. In the Network Views tree, select the check boxes of the required network views.
    The Network Views tree displays only those network views that belong to the network domain in which this poll policy is defined. Cross-domain network views do not appear, because poll policies apply to only one domain.
    Attention: If you select the All Devices option, the poll that you create will poll all devices in the current network domain.

    If you do not choose any network views, the poll policy polls all devices that are in the classes assigned to the selected poll definition. If the poll definition does not have any classes assigned, then it applies to all device classes.

  5. Optional: V4.2 FixPack 17: Click Next. If the chosen poll definition supports dynamic indexing, the Choose Device for Dynamic SNMP Index page opens. If the poll definition does not support dynamic indexing, go to the next step.
    • If you want to poll all indexes in the table, click Next.
    • If you know the name or IP address of the device, enter it in the Device field.
    • If you do not know the name or IP address of the device, click Show Applicable Devices and select the device from the dropdown list of the devices in the view.
    Note: Choosing a device here does not change the scope of the poll policy.
  6. Optional: V4.2 FixPack 17: Click Next. If the chosen poll definition supports dynamic indexing, the Choose Dynamic SNMP Index page opens. If the poll definition does not support dynamic indexing, go to the next step.
    • If you want to poll all indexes in the table, click Next.
    • If you know the index, enter it in the Selected Index field.
    • To query the device for available indexes, click Query Device and select the index from the table of indexes. The table shows each available index on the device and its current value.
  7. Click Next. On the Poll Policy Summary page, review the information that you specified and click Finish.