Alert Parameters to Get Interface Description (i.e. Something Meaningful to Network Admins)

Question

Hi All,
We have recently deployed OpsMgr 2012 R2 inparallel to our legacy 2007 environment.
For network device monitoring in the 2007 environment we used the xSNMP Management Pack on top-of the native capabilities.
On of the positive aspects of the 2007 set-up was that we were able to leverage the xSNMP Management Packs ability to expose the interface alias/description which our Network admins populate to identify the connection/purpose of an interface within the SMS
Channel format.
Basically, the Network Admins would give me a list of critical interfaces and using the combination of Path and Alias/Description I would be able to confidently enable interface monitoring and alerting for those interfaces.
In 2012, however, all that has been changed.  Now, interfaces are identified by an Interface Name value that is not really meaningful or relevant to the way our Network Admins work.  Wjat I also find problematic is the way that interfaces seem
to have been divorced from the the source device in such a way that the default email alert format doesn't even include the Path (source device) on which the interface generating the alert is associated with.  This is even the case when trying to create
a custom monitored interfaces State view in that the Path column is populated by the MAC address rather than with the host device that the interface is on which is what really matters.  Who deals in MAC addresses?
What we require is a way to expose the host device and Interface Description and Alias  values as part of an SMS/email alert as that is crucial information that an on-call engineer being woken-up at 2:00 AM needs to know rather than scratching
their head with some guff about IF-20 without even the parent device of that interface given so that they can at least know what device to log-on to manually try and identify which interface connection/service  is down even though they should not have
to do that.
I have already tried to customize the SMS Channel format from its default format to the following:
State: $Data[Default='Not Present']/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$ $Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityFullName$ $Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$
using the list of alert parameters from Kevin Holman's blog but even with the $Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityFullName parameter the information is not satisfactory.
For all the improvement in SNMP and network monitoring it seems that something that was actually good and useful in 2007 has now been lost because of the way interfaces/ports  have been divorced from the parent Managed Network Node device.
Can anyone advise how I might be able to get sensible interface alerts in my email and SMS notifications that provide the host router/switch Display Name, and the Interface Description and Alias of the Interface?
Points given to all considered replies.
Kind Regards,
Michael

Answer 1

Yeah, that's kind of a mess...
You can create a workaround to change the name similar like that:
http://www.vroege.biz/?p=746
But it needs some authoring knowledge and must run every time after a network discovery. Since this means a class property change it is a performance consuming workflow and should not run top often.
HTH, Patrick
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helped you.
Patrick Seidl (System Center and Private Cloud)
Website: http://www.syliance.com
Blog: http://www.systemcenterrocks.com