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Network topology and Cirrus - your feedback requested

Many of you use the Find MAC/IP address tool within Cirrus to determine the potential impact of configuration changes in your environment. We’re exploring how we can extend the use of network discovery/topology within Cirrus. Help us out by providing more information about your use-cases:

1. Why and how you use the Find MAC/IP address tool within Cirrus today (the more detail the better)?

2. What enhancement requests for the Find MAC/IP tool would you like to see and why?

3. Do you have configuration management scenarios where more L2 and/or L3 network topology information in Cirrus would be valuable? If so, please describe your use-case.

If you’re amenable to having a follow-up call to discuss in more detail, please let me know in your posts.

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Accepted answers

All comments

savell

We would love to correlate the MAC/IP data with a connected device (as Switch Port Mapper does for a single device).

This information would then be utilized within our CMDB to track and identify service impacts for problem and change activity.

Currently we obtain this information from another product (much like Switch Port Mapper does for a single device) - but it means maintaining yet another product and running additional batch scripts.

Currently Cirrus has issues with stale data (i.e. aging issues) and the reporting function to produce a cross-referenced report such as this.

Happy to take a follow-up phone call.

Dave.

jamesbernhard

We would love for the function to be imbedded in the Orion website so that we can provide our remote field technicians the ability to track down a hostname, ip or MAC to a port and then be able to look at the configuration of that port. This would prevent numerous calls from non network engineers asking what is this plugged into, what vlan is that port on, what is the speed/duplex, etc.

jkoebel

Well I think if you search the thwack forums for IP Device/User Tracker you will find some posts from others and myself. What I would like is for Cirrus to be able to tell me what switchport a host/IP Address is connected. Thats it! I should be able to enter an IP Address or host address and then Cirrus tell me the switch name or IP address and the switchport.

Unfortunately for the current user tracker built into Cirrus, we have a network with more than one switch in it. Because of that, the current Cirrus User Tracker doesn't work. Its horrible and should be removed with an update. It should be removed until someone at Solarwinds actually tests it out. I would love for someone within the development team at Solarwinds or a customer, who has used this tool and had it work, to please respond or make a comment. Again please only respond if you have used it or tested it on a network with at least two switches.

We are currently running Cirrus 3.5, if its fixed with 4.0 I would love to hear about it.

John Koebel

jamesbernhard

One of our network engineers mentioned this as well...

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One other request that comes up every once in a while is “How long has a specific port been in the unused state?” We would need syslog history to get that type of information directly from the switch, but if Cirrus can supply the date when a port last reported a mac address that would be an easier way to get the info.

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BXIV

One of our network engineers mentioned this as well...
----
One other request that comes up every once in a while is “How long has a specific port been in the unused state?” We would need syslog history to get that type of information directly from the switch, but if Cirrus can supply the date when a port last reported a mac address that would be an easier way to get the info.
----

Why not just use Orion, select all the interfaces on the switch and run a down interface report with a filter of before mm/dd/yyyy and a nice and neat report comes out. The bonus is that you don't have to keep the ports monitored all the time, the switch keeps track of that information. However I have only 3560s and 3750s to verify that on, and I can also supply the report I used if requested.

skaczkowski

Those ideas are great and all, but I think the Cirrus user tracker needs some serious work before it's actually functional. What gets me is that from day 1 of using the Cirrus user tracker (1st and only day I used it) I found it to be completely useless. What is the point of telling me 50 ports that a device *COULD* be on? The only thing I care about when I'm looking up a device (IP, MAC, Name) is WHAT switch and port it's connected to, that's it! Don't show me anything else, don't RATE the ports it might be on, just show me where it is!

Just look at CiscoWorks, that's exactly what the Cirrus user tracker *SHOULD* be..

If that functionality happens then lets talk about adding some whiz bang features, until then keep working on fixing it..

Regards,

-Steve

chris.lapoint

Unfortunately for the current user tracker built into Cirrus, we have a network with more than one switch in it. Because of that, the current Cirrus User Tracker doesn't work. Its horrible and should be removed with an update. It should be removed until someone at Solarwinds actually tests it out. I would love for someone within the development team at Solarwinds or a customer, who has used this tool and had it work, to please respond or make a comment. Again please only respond if you have used it or tested it on a network with at least two switches.
We are currently running Cirrus 3.5, if its fixed with 4.0 I would love to hear about it.

We've made some substantial improvements to the Find IP/MAC Address tool with v4.0. You might download an evaluation copy of Cirrus v4 and check it out to see if this better addresses your needs.

jonchill

I would be great that If I ran a report for a particularly switch along with the switch detail it would also return the MAC, IP address and computer name of the device attached to a port.

This would be an excellent step forward and save us a great deal of time in tracing patch leads from user ports to the switch in our cabs and at times this can be very time consuming and difficult.

Thanks

chris.lapoint

I'm not saying this precludes us from adding this type of topology information to Cirrus as well, but have you checked out LANsurveyor or Toolset Switch Port Mapper which both provide detailed topology mapping. LANsurveyor offers the ability to automated switch port mapper runs across multiple switches and produce reports similar to the ones you are requesting. Toolset Switch Port Mapper allows you to do this one switch at a time.

DGoodale

When I'm replacing a switch, it's really nice to have CiscoWorks tell me what's connected to every port. It would be great if Cirrus could do that as well.