Thola is a new open source tool for identifying, reading and monitoring network devices. It serves as a unified interface for communication with devices from various manufacturers and features a check mode which complies with the monitoring plugins development guidelines. Therefore it is compatible with Nagios, Icinga, Zabbix, Checkmk, etc. One new focus of Thola is its integration into Ansible. It enables inventorying network devices regardless of their vendor or operating system. This talk will inform about the current state of development as well as planned features. You will learn how to use Thola to improve inventorying and monitoring your network.

1. Introducing Thola
Tobias Berdin
A tool for monitoring and provisioning network devices

2. Overview
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generic response
Server
Juniper speci
fi
c request
Juniper speci
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c response
Cisco speci
fi
c response
Cisco speci
fi
c request
Juniper Switch
Cisco Switch
Thola

3. Overview
Juniper speci
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c request
Juniper speci
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c response
Cisco speci
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Cisco speci
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Juniper Switch
Cisco Switch
Thola
gather facts
facts
Ansible

4. Why is Thola that awesome?
• uni
fi
ed interface for communication with devices from
Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, Nokia/ISAM and many more
• support for various devices like switches, routers,
directional radio, UPS…
• easy way for adding additional device types

5. Why is Thola that awesome?
• usage of different protocols including SNMP, HTTP…
• low resource needs
open source

6. Modes of operation
• Command Line Interface
• Monitoring Check Plugin
• REST API
• Ansible Module

7. Getting started with Thola

8. $ thola identify
Automatically identify a device

9. • check output per default in check plugin format
• can be used in monitoring tools (e.g. Nagios, Icinga)
$ thola check

10. $ thola check cpu-load
Check CPU usage

11. $ thola api
Start and con
fi
gure REST API

12. $ thola-client
Let the API do the work

13. Using Thola with Ansible

14. Using Thola with Ansible
• gather facts of your hosts
• read out identify information
• perform checks
• embedded in playbooks

15. Why?

17. Gathering identify facts
Identify hosts and display their properties

18. Gathering identify facts
Identify hosts and display their properties

19. Gathering cpu load facts
Read cpu load of your hosts

20. Gathering cpu load facts
Read cpu load of your hosts

21. Why using Thola with Ansible?
• one module for all vendors and device types
• variety of check and read modes
• easy way for adding new manufacturers

22. Live Demo

23. Thanks for your attention 🎉
thola.io
github.com/inexio/thola
galaxy.ansible.com/inexio/thola
reddit.com/r/thola