Selecting devices is one of the foundational functions required to return meaningful results in Kentik Detect, not only from ad-hoc queries in Data Explorer but also elsewhere, including the Library’s Saved Views and Dashboards. Our device selector has allowed you to choose groups of devices by type (router or host) or by site (physical location; see About Sites). But until now you haven’t been able to flexibly define your own device groups or to change the devices covered by Dashboards and Saved Views (e.g. add a newly deployed router) without editing the device assignments for each specific view.

Introducing Device Labels

With the recent introduction of Device Labels, those limitations are now gone. A device label is simply a non-exclusive property, any number of values for which can be assigned to (or removed from) any device at any time. Labels allow you to define groups of devices based on any criteria you choose: capacity, the customers they serve, the device manufacturer, etc.

When a query is defined using a device label then the devices whose flow data will be included in the query are determined at run time based on which devices have that label. This means that if you refer to devices via labels when building components such as dashboards, saved views, reports, and saved filters then you can change the devices that a given component covers without going back and revising the component itself. This makes the assignment of devices to queries much less tedious, and it makes the views that use those queries (Dashboards, Saved Views) much easier to maintain as your network evolves.

Using Device Labels

Device Labels are implemented in the portal with a new page (Admin » Device Labels) where you assign labels to devices as shown below.

Depending on where you are in the portal you’ll also see a new Device Selector that’s been redesigned to take advantage of device labels. As shown below, you can still select individual devices from the sidebar, or you can select by label, so that all devices that have the label at query run-time will be covered by the query.

As shown below, device labels are also now available for filtering in the Ad_Hoc filter Groups dialog in both Data Explorer and Alerting:

It’s important to note one area where you won’t find device labels, which is in the Group-By Dimensions selector. Because multiple overlapping labels can be assigned to a given device, it’s not workable for us to break down traffic by labels. Even so, we’re sure that you’ll find device labels to be a very flexible and efficient enhancement to Kentik Detect.