CISCO-SWITCH-USAGE-MIB

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Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc.

Last Updated: 2001-05-02

Category: Cisco Devices, Network Monitoring (RMON)

Description: Monitors aggregate switch utilization metrics including bandwidth consumption and port usage on Cisco switches.

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What Is CISCO-SWITCH-USAGE-MIB?

This Cisco MIB tracks switch fabric usage statistics on chassis-based Cisco switches, specifically counting ingress packets and octets switched through the internal fabric per interface, distinct from a port's total incoming traffic. It exposes performance-counter data only, including both standard and high-capacity (64-bit) counter variants for ingress fabric traffic. Its monitoring focus is hardware performance status: gauging how much load each interface is placing on the shared switch fabric, which helps identify fabric-side bottlenecks that wouldn't show up in ordinary interface byte/packet counters. The MIB's own description is careful to note these counters reflect fabric-switched traffic only, not total ingress traffic for the interface, implying a complementary relationship with standard IF-MIB interface counters. Typical deployment is capacity planning and congestion diagnosis on modular Cisco chassis switches with a centralized switch fabric, and a CISCO-SWITCH-USAGE-MIB download from Cisco is the usual starting point for compiling these fabric-usage counters into an NMS.

IPNetwork Monitor allows you to monitor SNMP objects defined in CISCO-SWITCH-USAGE-MIB. Use the built-in SNMP Monitoring Browser to explore available variables, view their current values and descriptions, and select the objects you want to monitor. You can then create SNMP monitors, configure thresholds, and receive alerts when monitored values change.

Supported Devices

Cisco chassis-based switches with a centralized switch fabric

Monitoring Examples

cswitchUsageStatTable/cswitchUsageStatEntry rows expose cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfPkts and cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfOctets per interface, with cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfHCPkts/cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfHCOctets providing 64-bit high-capacity counterparts for high-throughput ports. An admin comparing these fabric-side counters against standard IF-MIB interface counters for the same port can isolate whether traffic is being dropped before or after it reaches the switch fabric, helping pinpoint a fabric bottleneck versus a line-card/interface issue.

What Can Be Monitored

ingress packets switched via fabric
ingress octets switched via fabric
high-capacity (64-bit) fabric packet counters
high-capacity (64-bit) fabric octet counters
per-interface switch fabric load

Imported Objects

From CISCO-SMI

ciscoMgmt

OBJECT-IDENTITY

From IF-MIB

ifIndex

OBJECT-TYPE

From SNMPv2-CONF

MODULE-COMPLIANCE
OBJECT-GROUP

From SNMPv2-SMI

Counter32
Counter64
MODULE-IDENTITY
OBJECT-TYPE

How to Use in IPNetwork Monitor

Example using cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfPkts OID:

Select a Cisco chassis-based switch with centralized switch fabric as the target host to create a monitor — the SNMP service should be up and running on it. Click New Monitor, then check SNMP Custom on the Favorites tab, click Next, and confirm the host. On the next page, click Select... to open the built-in SNMP MIB Browser and type cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfPkts into the Find box to locate it in the OID tree, selecting the specific row/instance you want to monitor since this is a table column, then select it and click OK. The number of ingress packets of a interface which use the switch resource. On the monitor's Main parameters page you can set the target's SNMP port (default 161), credentials, polling interval, and other settings — see the SNMP Monitor help for details. On the State conditions and Alerting tabs, configure when the monitor should change state and trigger an alert; since this is a Counter32-type OID, Value bounds is the most useful condition here — trigger an alert if the counter increases sharply between polls relative to its normal baseline, since an unexpected spike often reflects a real change in traffic or activity. Click Finish to create the monitor; you can adjust any parameter later.

OIDs

OID symbolic	OID numeric	Type	Access	Description
ciscoSwitchUsageMIB	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201			This MIB defines objects related to statistics for the usage of switch fabric. The switch fabric is used by the incoming packets from the line/network to a interface. Such packets are called ingress packets. Counters are maintained for number of ingress packets/ octets switched by the switch fabric for each interface. NOTE: These counters are not counting the total number of incoming packets and octets for a particular interface. Instead only the counts of packets and octets that actually use the switch-fabric are being accounted for by this MIB. Therefore, the counters in this MIB are distinctly different from packet and octet counters found in the IF-MIB.
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBObjects	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1
ciscoSwitchUsageStats	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1
cswitchUsageStatTable	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1		not-accessible	A list of switch resouce usage statistics entries. The statistics will give information on the switch usage by each interface.
cswitchUsageStatEntry	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1.1		not-accessible	Entry contains information of a particular interface in terms of how much switch resource it has used. An entry in this table exists for each ifEntry with an ifType of fastEther(62) for FastEthernet interface and gigabitEthernet (117) for Gigabit interface.
C32 cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfPktsEx	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1.1.1	Counter32	read-only	The number of ingress packets of a interface which use the switch resource.
C64 cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfHCPkts	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1.1.2	Counter64	read-only	The number of ingress packets of a interface which use the switch resource. This is a 64 bit (High Capacity) version of the cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfPkts counter for use with SNMP v2c or v3 Managers.
C32 cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfOctets	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1.1.3	Counter32	read-only	The number of ingress octets of a interface which use the switch resource.
C64 cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfHCOctets	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.1.1.1.1.4	Counter64	read-only	The number of ingress octets of a interface which use the switch resource. This is a 64 bit (High Capacity) version of the cswitchUsageByIngrsIntfOctets counter for use with SNMP v2c or v3 Managers.
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBNotifyPrefix	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.2
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBNotifications	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.2.0
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBConformance	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.3
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBCompliances	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.3.1
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBCompliance	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.3.1.1			The compliance statement for the switch usage statistics group.
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBGroups	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.3.2
ciscoSwitchUsageMIBGroup	1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.201.3.2.1			The Object Group for switch usage statistics

RFC description

Tracks switch fabric usage statistics and packet forwarding counts per interface on Cisco switches.

Start monitoring Cisco chassis-based switches with centralized switch fabric with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor. Import MIBs, browse SNMP OIDs, create custom SNMP monitors, configure alerts, and monitor any SNMP-enabled network device from a single console.

Download CISCO-SWITCH-USAGE-MIB