Cumulus Linux Switch Monitoring with Datadog

As a Linux platform, one of the cool things is that we often don’t have visibility into how customers use their switches running Cumulus Linux. They buy HCL-compatible hardware from our partners, and with some training and enablement, are off to the races.

The idea for running Datadog in Cumulus Linux came about for the simple reason that we were in adjacent booths at PuppetConf last year, and we all figured it would be cool to try it out. Further, since Datadog already provides visibility across systems, apps and services, they were interested in seeing how networking can be added into the mix. As you will see, it turns out to be pretty simple.

Installing Datadog in Cumulus Linux

The Datadog agent, as with most things Debian, installs easily on Cumulus Linux. For x86 switches, this is as simple as installing a Debian package and performing simple changes in the Datadog agent files, such as the application/API key, which is the tag associated with the switch. You can easily automate this installation using common automation tools like Puppet and Ansible.

Configuration

Since the Datadog agent is designed for servers, metrics can be collected using Datadog’s SNMP plugin, a custom sFlow Continue reading