Third-party integration

As networking equipment vendors transition to a post-SNMP era, offering custom APIs for access to device and metric data, a general framework has been developed to support third-party integrations with the OnSight vCollector.

Third-party integrations are deployed using a sidecar Docker container installed on the OnSight. This container houses all the necessary vendor-specific integration logic and communicates with the core OnSight container, which manages the communication between the integration and FortiMonitor.

Note: Currently, only Alkira and Arista integrations are supported. In upcoming feature updates, you'll be able to create custom integrations using a provided template or even develop them from scratch.

The following section defines the key terms used throughout this article.

• Integration: The sidecar container that houses all the third-party specific logic.

• Integration configuration: One or more configuration sets that are stored centrally and provided to the integration.

• Instance: A specific device or endpoint being monitored.

• Metric: An individual measurement associated with an instance that can be collected by the integration.

Integration workflow

1. Installation: This process involves adding the container and enabling it to run.

2. Integration Configuration: You then configure details centrally to define the actions the integration should perform. This step is optional, but it is similar to configuring a Fabric or VMware connection. It specifies what to connect to and the credentials to use. These configuration details are sent back to the OnSight and provided to the integration container.

3. Instance Discovery: After the configuration is complete, the integration performs discovery based on the configuration and returns a list of available instances that can be monitored. Discovery results are sent to FortiMonitor, where you can either manually select instances to provision. If auto-provisioning is enabled, instances will be automatically created.

4. Metric Discovery: Using the integration and instance configuration details, the integration returns a list of available metrics that can be gathered. These metrics can be global or specific to each instance and may vary depending on the instance type. Different integrations will handle metric discovery differently based on the complexity of the monitored environment. Metadata about available metrics is sent to FortiMonitor for auto-provisioning or to be made available to users via the control panel.

5. Metric Collection: The core functionality of the integration involves collecting metric values for the metrics that have been provisioned. These values are then transmitted to FortiMonitor for storage, incident management, and inclusion in dashboards and reports.

Prerequisites

• Latest version of the OnSight

• Configured third-party integration

Note: Currently, only Alkira and Arista integrations are supported. In upcoming feature updates, you'll be able to create custom integrations using a provided template or even develop them from scratch. See the following sections for details on how to configure third-party integration support for Alkira and Arista:

• Arista CloudVision integration

• Alkira integration