Alert on network collisions

[100grm]

Hi, 

Yes, I understand that this question might not be relevant in today's context. However, does Dynatrace provide any functionality to detect network collisions? Has anyone tried configuring alerts for network collisions?

Detecting network errors and their impact on services (dynatrace.com)

This is an oldie, but a goodie that’s now almost irrelevant because of full duplex switches and technology advances. Back in the days if two devices on the same Ethernet network (e.g., connected through a hub) tried to transmit data at the same time, the network would detect the collision and drop both packets.

The CSMA/CD protocol, which made sure that nobody else was transmitting data before a device started transmitting its own data, was a step in the right direction. With full duplex switches, where communication end-points can talk to each other at the same time, this potential error is obsolete. Even in wireless networks, which still work basically like hubs, network collisions can be neglected because there are procedures in place to avoid collisions in the first place (e.g., CSMA/CA or RTS/CTS).

I will appreciate any help, 

Thanks in advance

[AntonioSousa · Accepted solution]

@100grm,

Well, you don't normally see network collisions today, as most of the networks don't even have that concept, as you refer.

Dynatrace does a pretty great job of getting information at the network stack level, but that is mainly at a higher level, including retransmissions, connections refused/timeout, etc.

The type of information you reference is extremely low level, and normally only exposed by network devices. As such, Dynatrace can leverage SNMP to get that information for you. Eventually, if devices support that, it can also make it into Dynatrace as traps.

Beware that the Dynatrace SNMP integration does not give you collisions by default, but gives you interface errors & discards, which IMO are much more important metrics.