Cisco Meraki Resources Monitoring

Follow the steps in the procedure below to add a Cisco Meraki organization to BMC Helix Network Management so that BMC Helix Network Management can detect and add its devices for monitoring. Note: Currently, BMC Helix Network Management supports the addition of only a single Meraki organization for monitoring.

During configuration, you will be required to provide the organization ID and API key, as provided to you in your Cisco Meraki account.

curl -L -H 'X-Cisco-Meraki-API-Key: ' -X GET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' 'https://api.meraki.com/api/v0/organizations'

In order for BMC Helix Network Management to properly detect and add your Meraki-managed devices, you must make sure that SNMP is turned on for each device and provide proper credentials to BMC Helix Network Management in a device template. If you do not turn on SNMP or provide the correct credentials, BMC Helix Network Management will monitor only the up/down status for your devices.

Add a Cisco Meraki Organization to BMC Helix Network Management

1. Log in to BMC Helix Network Management as a user with the SuperAdmin access level.
2. If your Cisco Meraki devices use a different set of login credentials than those stored in the "Default" device template, for each additional set of credentials required, create a new device template and add the necessary credentials to it. (See here for more information about storing device credentials in device templates.)
3. From the main menu, select Administration >> Modules >> Cloud Services to navigate to the Cloud Services Administration page.
4. Locate the Meraki section and click the Add Meraki button. (Currently, BMC Helix Network Management supports only one organization for monitoring.)
5. In the pop-up dialog that appears:
   1. In the NAME field, enter a unique name to identify this organization within BMC Helix Network Management.
   2. In the API KEY field, enter your Cisco Meraki API key.
   3. In the ORGANIZATION ID field, enter the ID of the organization managing the devices that you want to monitor.
   4. It is recommended to leave the USE SSL option checked unless you have specific security issues that prevent its use.
   5. For the DEVICE TYPE DISCOVERY options, select the types of devices present in your organization that you want to monitor. (You can deselect any device types that you do not want BMC Helix Network Management to monitor. These options can be edited at any time.)
   6. Click the Save button.

BMC Helix Network Management will shortly begin detecting the devices in your organization and adding them as managed devices for monitoring.

Details regarding the Meraki API call

BMC Helix Network Management communicates with the Meraki cloud API approximately every 5 minutes and makes the following calls:

• A discovery call to learn new devices and update existing devices (1 call per 1k devices)
• A device status call to determine overall (up/down) status (1 call per 1k devices)
• A network call to retrieve network details, like ID (1 call per organization)
• A bulk uplink call to retrieve WAN uplink status (1 call per organization)

If any access points are being managed, additional calls to retrieve the following performance metrics (4 calls per device):

• Client count
• Latency
• Data rate
• Connection statistics

Note: The API call figures above do not include any additional service checks configured by the user (such as Meraki WAN Status (Service Check) or Meraki Device Status (Service Check)). Any user-configured service checks can be estimated to make 1 call for each service check, approximately every 5 minutes.