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Network Map & Topology Difficulties

I am having difficulties using the Network Map and Topology capabilities in NPM. I have gotten bits and pieces to work here and there but never fully in the way that I would expect.

I have the NPM Network Topology resource on my Node Details page but it doesn't have information for many of my nodes. Also, Connect Now seems to have limited details on my topology as well.

I have a few questions that will hopefully help me sort this out so that I can make use of these features...

What information does Orion collect from nodes to determine topology?
- How is this information collected?
What is the proper process to get Orion to collect topology data on my nodes?
What type of devices should I expect to get details for?
- Are there devices that I won't get this information from?
Are there specific configurations needed on my nodes for this to work?

If others are successfully making use of these capabilities I would be interested to hear what you did to get it working.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on this!

P.S. I have read other posts and watched the videos on this but none of that has helped.

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netlogix

Have you tried downloading a trial copy of SW's LAN Surveyor and see if that maps the ports out right?

I worked with support once and they had me use that to see if it could get the topology (i think they jacked the technology/logic out of that to add to Orion). If it won't get the topology, then there is something weird with the technology/setup, but if it did, then there was something weird with Orion. I wasn't getting any topology because I use VLANs and Orion didn't have some of the options set right, but I think they fixed that.

I use a scheduled discovery for a list of nodes and populate the list based on what is in Orion already. (I'll figure out how I did that and post it in a bit)

byrona

I use a scheduled discovery for a list of nodes and populate the list based on what is in Orion already. (I'll figure out how I did that and post it in a bit)

When you do the scheduled discovery of already existing nodes, do you re-add them to Orion? How do you handle that?

netlogix

I had to set this up again; I didn't have it in my production environment, just the test one that has been deleted.

This is what I did:

Create/Modify a Discovery Profile:
Create snmp list
Uncheck poll for VMware
Change to "Specific Nodes" (!!!! important for SQL query below !!!!)
    Add one IP address that I know is in Orion
Give Name, i.e. "Weekly Discovery"
    Check Use SNMP only
Frequency Custom, i.e. 168 hours
No, Don't run Now

Open SQL studio/manager, browse to NetPerfMon DB
Select top XX "DiscoveryProfiles", find and save the ProfileID of the Profile you just created
Run this SQL query (edit "<PUT PROFILE ID HERE>"):
-------------------------------------
Insert into DiscoveryProfileIPBulk
Select <PUT PROFILE ID HERE>, IP_Address
    From Nodes
    Where ObjectSubType = 'SNMP'
      and IP_Address not in (
          Select Host
            From DiscoveryProfileIPBulk
            Where ProfileID = <PUT PROFILE ID HERE>
          )
Delete from DiscoveryProfileIPBulk
Where Host not in (Select IP_Address from Nodes) and ProfileID = <PUT PROFILE ID HERE>
-------------------------------------

Run the Discovery job.

While that’s going, schedule that SQL query to run on a daily/weekly/whatever basis. Then go get lunch, take a nap and get a cup of coffee.

Now import something through this discovery. Hey! mine is missing too!!! OK, I think we need to open a ticket... something is not right, I thought is was just that the thing is a little complicated, but somethings weird here.

This kinda works for a re-occurring discovery... not that pretty, kinda like duct tape...

I think this whole thing should be added as part of the internal scheduled re-discovery, but that just my opinion.

I wonder if you could re-discover the switches only to get the topo data (once things are fixed). Like modify the insert where to have something like IP_Address like '10.%.x.%' or caption like '%-SW%' or Vendor = 'Cisco'

byrona

If I recall I had submitted a feature request that basically just goes through all nodes in the Orion DB (or some specified set of nodes) and updates Topology Data.

I personally think that the discovery and updating of Topology Data and Node Discovery are two separate things and should be separated within Orion. Admittedly, they do have some overlap but I shouldn't have to go discover the stuff that's already in the DB just to get updated Topo data... but that's just my opinion. = )