new NPM Network Topology resource - how does it work?

Hi,

I have a few questions about the feature

- from my first testing it works only for connections between nodes found in the same discovery

- It only works for nodes connected by a layer2 dot1q trunk

- It does not work for nodes connected by a layer3 connection (e.g. two routers)

We add routers with their loopback ip address. Are my observation correct or is there something I can do to get neibhour discovery working. A partionell working feature does not really since never know if the list is complete.

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bshopp

- from my first testing it works only for connections between nodes found in the same discovery
- It only works for nodes connected by a layer2 dot1q trunk
- It does not work for nodes connected by a layer3 connection (e.g. two routers)

Correct on the first item. On the second item, we leverage the bridge mib to gather the topological data along with the arp-ip mib. On the last item, L3 is weaker than L2 you are correct.

byrona

Brandon

Today was my first experience working with the Connect Now capabilities of Network Atlas and things didn't work as I would have expected.

Since all of my nodes were added to NPM pre-Orion v10, I went ahead and grabbed all of the IP address of my nodes from the Nodes table in the database.

I then added all of those IP's to a Network Sonar discovery and imported the results, the downside of this was I ended up with a lot of interfaces re-managed that I had intentionally unmanaged.

At this point I assumed that Orion would have topology information from all of my network devices so I opened Network Atlas, pulled a bunch of stuff out onto the map and clicked the Connect Now button.

The only thing that happened was a bunch of my nodes got connections to a switch, nothing else was connected. My expectation was something more along the lines of what I recall LANsurveryor doing the one time that I used it.

I was hoping that you might shed some light on what I did incorrectly, what I could do better in the future, or help me better understand how I should be using this feature to map my network.

Thanks, look forward to hearing from you!

robertcbrowning

Hi guys, Sorry, but I had had a similar problem. I re-discovered our core (about a dozen tightly connected 6500 chassis) and was surprized that ConnectNow found only 4 connections. The shop is almost completely L3 and ConnectNow just did not understand.

FormerMember

Our entire network is L3 to the edge.

1. Are there plans to support L3

2. It seems to me that for Atlas to be most effective you would allow it to do its own initial discovery based on the devices and interfaces already being monitored, we are and i suspect most people would be monitoring their core and access and distribution layer links. Based on the results in Atlas you could make a determination of what needed to be done.

MarieB

Hi SLXer--

Thanks for the input. I've marked this for the PM to review.

Sol

Same kinds of problems here. We have Cisco 3750's that don't appear to know what port they're connected to other Cisco switches on, even though CDP is running and show cdp neighbor reveals the information readily on the switch. Re-running Network Sonar Discovery on only the devices that should show correct connections doesn't remedy the problem either.