New Grafana dashboards will be released along with our product quarterly releases. As we collect new metrics or remove metrics, we will update the dashboards accordingly. The name of the json files or the name of the folders will typically consist of the indeni release to indicate the recommended version you should use. While you can use a new device dashboard with an older version of Indeni, beware that some of the panels may not work.

Naming Convention

There are three parts to the name:

Prefix
Optionals (as the name suggests, there may not be any)
Suffix (recommended Indeni release)

Format: [prefix]-[optionals]-[suffix].json

Prefix

The prefix has the name of the vendor and the device type. It is always there.

[Prefix] = <vendor>-<device-type>

vendor = CHKP/PAN/FTNT/ZS

device type = GW/FW/MGMT/MDS/Panorama/AppC

Optionals

Depending on the device type or whether there are optional panel links embedded in the panel, there may not be any optionals.

[optionals] = <virtual system>-vs

virtual system [Optional] = VSX/VDOM

vs [Optional] to indicate a virtual system sub dashboard.

Sub dashboards are intended to work in conjunction with the main dashboard. The main dashboard consists of global metrics that are applicable to all the virtual systems. The sub dashboard consists of metrics pertaining to the specific virtual system. All sub dashboards will have the same prefix as the main dashboard.

Suffix

[suffix] = <Indeni release>

Indeni release = R7-xx

The Indeni release the dashboard is intended to work with. Sometimes, the sub folder is used to identify the recommended indeni release. In that case, the suffix will not be there.

Examples

Putting it together, the format looks something like this:

Format: [<vendor>-<device type>]-[<virtual system>-vs]-[<Indeni release>].json

Let’s look at a few examples.

The device dashboard for Checkpoint secure gateway with no VSX.

CHKP-GW-R7-11.json

The device dashboard for Checkpoint secure gateway with VSX. CHKP-GW-VSX-R7-11.json is the main dashboard. The main dashboard consists of metrics that are applicable to all the virtual systems.

CHKP-GW-VSX-vs-R7-11.json is the virtual system sub dashboard with metrics pertaining to the specific virtual system. This sub dashboard works in conjunction with the main dashboard.

Dashboards with many sub dashboards

For performance reasons, we use a layout with a main dashboard with many sub dashboards. For example, this layout is used for Fortinet FortiGate. The main dashboard consists of the overview and the maintenance tab. The remaining tabs are on separate pages. For this layout, we use sub folders to group the json files of the many sub dashboards.

Let’s look at an example. The FortiGate dashboard will be in the “Fortinet” vendor folder. The dashboard to be used with Indeni 7.11 will be in the sub folder called FTNT-FW-R7-11. The list of JSON files are:

FTNT-FW-Main
FTNT-FW-sub-HA
FTNT-FW-sub-NetIntStats
FTNT-FW-sub-Network
FTNT-FW-sub-Services
FTNT-FW-sub-SessionGlobal
FTNT-FW-sub-SessionVdom
FTNT-FW-sub-System

Panel Links

We also introduced panel links with FortiGate. Panel links are embedded in a panel. It is a great way to drill down from the panel to obtain more information. Panel links are optional.

For example, a panel link is embedded in the Network Interface Statistics sub dashboard for additional error information.

Json file name = FTNT-FW-sub-NetIntStats-pl-error

where

pl [optional] indicates a panel link

error is the name of the sub dashboard.

Another example:

Json file name = FTNT-FW-sub-Network-pl-NetIntInfo

The Network sub dashboard has a panel link embedded in a panel. You can drill down from that panel to get additional information about the network interfaces.