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Why do few SNMP traps from ONTAP show only the string in Zabbix instead of the event name or description

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ontap-9
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CORE
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Applies to

  • ONTAP 9
  • Zabbix (SNMP monitoring)

Answer

This behavior is due to the type of SNMP trap generated by ONTAP for different EMS (Event Management System) events.

ONTAP supports three types of SNMP traps:

  1. Standard traps: Generic SNMP protocol traps, not specific to NetApp.
  2. Built-in traps: NetApp enterprise traps, each with a unique Object Identifier (OID) defined in the NetApp MIB file. The event description is sent, but the EMS message name is not included in the payload because the unique OID identifies the event.
  3. Severity-based traps: Multiple EMS events share a small set of OIDs based on severity. In this case, ONTAP prepends the EMS message name to the event description to help monitoring tools identify the originating event.
If a Zabbix alert for an ONTAP SNMP trap displays only the value/string, instead of the expected event name or description, it may indicate one of the following:
  1.  The OID in question is for a built-in event, and Zabbix is not properly mapping the OID to the event description, or
  2. There is an issue with Zabbix interpreting the trap payload for that specific OID.

Additional Information

  •  Built-in traps use unique OIDs and do not include the EMS message name in the payload.
  • Severity-based traps use shared OIDs and do include the EMS message name.
For example:
  1. For the event 'monitor.volume.nearlyFull' (built-in), the trap payload contains only the event description.
  2. For 'scsiblade.lun.offline.system' (severity-based), the payload contains both the EMS message name and the event description.
  • If Zabbix is showing the string for specific OIDs, verify that the Zabbix MIB and trap parsing configuration are up to date and correctly map NetApp OIDs to their descriptions. No changes are required on the ONTAP side, as this matches ONTAP's intended design. How to map ONTAP events to OIDs?
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