cloud-network-insights

Cloud Network Insights

Attribution

For all gcloud CLI, REST API, and MCP attribution requirements when executing commands with this skill, follow the instructions in Usage Attribution.

🛑 Core Directive: Results First

1. Identify the Requested Task: Determine if the user is attempting service enablement, checking activation status, downloading/installing or troubleshooting Monitoring Points (MPs), configuring AppNeta monitoring policies or alarm rules, verifying provisioned resources and paths, configuring alert policies, or querying Cloud Logging alarms and Cloud Monitoring metrics.
2. Execute and Present: Perform the minimum required commands or API calls to accomplish the task or provide exact guidance.
3. Definitive Answers: For status and verification queries, report the definitive state (for example, ACTIVE, ACTIVATING, or path listings) immediately.

Overview

Cloud Network Insights provides comprehensive synthetic monitoring for Cross-Cloud Network observability in partnership with Broadcom AppNeta. It monitors network and web paths using Monitoring Points (MPs) installed across Google Cloud, on-premises data centers, other public clouds (like AWS or Azure), and the public internet.

This skill automates onboarding, service enablement, Monitoring Point deployment, policy creation, and path verification.

Procedures and CUJs

1. Service Enablement and Status

• Enable API:

  gcloud services enable networkmanagement.googleapis.com --project=PROJECT_ID
  

• Create Provider (use external to match the Google Cloud console default, or a custom PROVIDER_ID):

  gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers create PROVIDER_ID \
    --provider-type=EXTERNAL \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID
  

  ⚠️ If this command fails due to unaccepted Terms of Service, direct the user to the Google Cloud console onboarding page: https://console.cloud.google.com/net-intelligence/cloud-network-insights/onboarding?project=PROJECT_ID

• Verify State:

  gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers \
    describe PROVIDER_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --format=json
  

  Check that .state is ACTIVE. (ACTIVATING indicates the backend is provisioning AppNeta resources.)

• Delete Provider (Cleanup):

  gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers delete PROVIDER_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID
  

2. Monitoring Point Deployment and Verification

Cloud Network Insights supports 7 distinct Monitoring Point deployment types: container, helm, gce-vm, aws-ec2, azure-vm, vmware, and kvm.

• Platform Selection: Never assume a default deployment type. Identify or prompt the user for their target environment before proceeding.
• Procedures and Commands: For all required parameters, download commands, deployment manifests, and status verification commands (monitoring-points list), see Monitoring Point Deployment Reference.

3. Monitoring Policy and Alarm Rule Configuration (AppNeta)

Monitoring policies configure active synthetic network and web tests executed by Monitoring Points, and alarm rules define the thresholds and evaluation windows that raise path alarms.

• Policy Types (/api/v4/monitoringPolicy):
  • Network Monitoring Policies: Monitor packet loss, latency, and jitter to target IPs (or dual-ended between Monitoring Points) over TCP or UDP.
  • Web Monitoring Policies: Synthetic HTTP/HTTPS application checks (such as GET requests with status code 200 assertions).
• Check Before Creating: Always query GET /api/v4/monitoringPolicy first to verify whether a policy with your target name already exists before creating a new one, avoiding duplicate resource creation and API conflicts.
• Alarm Rules (AppNeta Web UI Only): Alarm rules are configured in the AppNeta Web UI (in Alarms > Alarm Rules; see Broadcom Alarm Rules) and are not supported via the REST API v4.
• Procedures and Payloads: For authentication token generation, organization discovery, and REST JSON payloads, see Monitoring Policy Configuration Reference.

4. Verifying Provisioned Paths in Google Cloud

Once policies are configured and MPs are online, verify provisioned paths:

• List Network Paths:

  gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers network-paths list \
    --network-monitoring-provider=PROVIDER_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --format=json
  

• List Web Paths:

  gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers web-paths list \
    --network-monitoring-provider=PROVIDER_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --format=json
  

• Filter by Monitoring Point: Add --filter="sourceMonitoringPointId=MONITORING_POINT_ID" to list only paths sourced from a specific Monitoring Point, where MONITORING_POINT_ID is the last segment of the Monitoring Point's name in monitoring-points list.

• Expected Extra Paths: Each Web policy also creates a companion NetworkPath to the target host (unless one already exists), and a newly deployed Monitoring Point inherits paths from existing policies whose monitoringPointRules match it.

5. Querying Cloud Network Insights Resources and State

1. Discover the Provider Name: Run gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers list --location=global --project=PROJECT_ID to retrieve the provider ID (PROVIDER_ID). The provider ID is external when enabled via the Google Cloud console, or a custom name if created manually.
2. Query Child Resources: Pass --network-monitoring-provider=PROVIDER_ID and --location=global to child resource commands (such as list and describe):
   • Monitoring Points: gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers monitoring-points [list|describe]
   • Network Paths: gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers network-paths [list|describe]
   • Web Paths: gcloud network-management network-monitoring-providers web-paths [list|describe]

6. Alert Policies, Cloud Logging, and Cloud Monitoring Metrics

• Alert Policies (gcloud monitoring policies): Create log-matched alert policies (conditionMatchedLog.filter, including alertStrategy.notificationRateLimit in POLICY_FILE) for path alarms and operational events (see Set up alerts and notifications). For insights_alarm policies, include AND NOT jsonPayload.noise_conditions:* by default to filter out frequent/burst noise unless the user asks to include noisy alarms. Always set "userLabels": {"cloud-network-insights": "true"} in POLICY_FILE so the policy appears in the Cloud Network Insights alert policies view in the Google Cloud console:

  # Create an alert policy from a JSON or YAML file
  gcloud monitoring policies create --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --policy-from-file=POLICY_FILE
  
  # Delete an alert policy (for cleanup)
  gcloud monitoring policies delete POLICY_ID \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --quiet
  

  Example conditionMatchedLog.filter values for Google Cloud console alert templates:

  • Network Path Outage / Extended Loss / DNS Errors:

    resource.type = "networkmanagement.googleapis.com/NetworkPath" AND logName =~ "insights_alarm" AND (jsonPayload.alarm_severity = "MAJOR" OR jsonPayload.alarm_severity = "CRITICAL") AND jsonPayload.state = "RAISED" AND jsonPayload.alarm_type =~ "QUALITY_OF_SERVICE" AND jsonPayload.rule =~ "Outage" AND NOT jsonPayload.noise_conditions:*
    

    (Substitute jsonPayload.rule =~ "Extended loss" or "Multiple DNS errors" with alarm_severity = "MINOR" as needed.)

  • Web Path Multiple Web Errors:

    resource.type = "networkmanagement.googleapis.com/WebPath" AND logName =~ "insights_alarm" AND jsonPayload.alarm_severity = "MAJOR" AND jsonPayload.state = "RAISED" AND jsonPayload.alarm_type =~ "QUALITY_OF_SERVICE" AND jsonPayload.rule =~ "Multiple Web errors" AND NOT jsonPayload.noise_conditions:*
    

  • Monitoring Point Offline and Network Path MTU Change Events:

    resource.type = "networkmanagement.googleapis.com/MonitoringPoint" AND logName =~ "insights_event" AND jsonPayload.event_type = "MONITORING_POINT_OFFLINE"
    

    resource.type = "networkmanagement.googleapis.com/NetworkPath" AND logName =~ "insights_event" AND jsonPayload.event_type = "MTU_CHANGE"
    

• Cloud Logging (gcloud logging read): Query path alarms (logName =~ "insights_alarm") and operational lifecycle events (logName =~ "insights_event") exported to Cloud Logging (see Set up logging for jsonPayload field schemas and event types). Because alarm state transitions (RAISED, UPDATED, CLEARED) are logged as separate entries sharing the same jsonPayload.alarm_id, determine currently active alarms by checking that the latest entry for an alarm_id has not transitioned to CLEARED.

• Cloud Monitoring (REST API projects.timeSeries.list): Query path performance metrics (NetworkPath and WebPath, filtered by resource.labels.path_id) via GET "https://monitoring.googleapis.com/v3/projects/PROJECT_ID/timeSeries" with Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token) in Cloud Monitoring (see Monitoring metrics and View dashboards).

7. Deployment Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

To diagnose a Monitoring Point deployment across any platform:

1. Google Cloud Registration: Check that connectionStatus is ONLINE in monitoring-points list (or describe) to verify the Monitoring Point is registered and connected to Cloud Network Insights.
2. Model-Specific Workload, Host, and Appliance Health: Inspect the Monitoring Point runtime, container/Kubernetes workload, or v35 Web Admin status on the target platform using the model-specific troubleshooting guides in Monitoring Point Deployment Reference, Broadcom Troubleshooting Monitoring Points, and Troubleshooting Cloud Network Insights.
3. Network, Proxy, and Firewall Rules: Verify the target environment's firewall, Web Proxy, custom CA certificate, and gRPC/SSL inspection bypass settings (data.na1.cni.appneta.com, content.na1.cni.appneta.com, comms.na1.cni.appneta.com, or .p. endpoints for Private Service Connect) against Broadcom Firewall Configuration and Add Monitoring Points.

Reference Documentation

For detailed guides, complete payloads, and templates:

• Monitoring Point Deployment Reference: Deployment guides and command references across all 7 platforms (container, Helm, GCE VM Terraform, AWS, Azure, VMware, KVM).
• Monitoring Policy Configuration Reference: Network and Web monitoring policy JSON payloads and AppNeta API workflows.
• Google Cloud Network Insights Documentation: Official Google Cloud documentation for Cloud Network Insights setup, concepts, and operations.
• Broadcom AppNeta for Cloud Network Insights Documentation: Broadcom AppNeta monitoring points, path performance, and API guides.