What We're Working on for NPM (Updated: July 16, 2021)

Hi there, 

For your first point you can indeed browse interfaces or other connected devices from the 'entity tree', regardless of if they are currently in the map or not (Make sure you are on the newest 2020.2.6 release as I find this helps):

For your second point, that topology is automatically polled and created directly from the devices themselves and stored in the database. You can turn this off on a node-by-node basis by going to 'List Resources' and then unticking either or both of these:

For the final point, you can create multiple topology connections, and they will both show up when you select the link, but you are right, there will only be a single line at any time. I very much hope they can allow us to create non-topology links and other 'creative' options rather than having it be simply based on network connections. 

Orion Maps - have just started to look at this module for the first time as I don't want to start to create lots of new maps in Network Atlas as its days are numbered. The first thing I found challenging was the lack of an entity tree for want of a better term. This made selecting interfaces to go with a nodes I had put on the map a bit of a faff. In Network Atlas you simply expand interfaces under the parent object in the left hand list and drag it across. In Orion Maps you have to change the grouping from "Nodes" to "Interfaces" and then try and find a filter that may display the interfaces you are interested in. The filter doesn't appear to include the string used in the "on Node Name" part of the interface making this particularly time consuming and frustrating.

I have two switch stacks in two different Data Centres connected by two different point to point links. I wanted to see if I could represent this simple setup in Orion Maps. It looked possible in some of the tutorial videos I had watched. I added the two stack nodes (I would be nice to see Extreme switches supported in switch stack polling in future releases) as well as the four interface objects (two from each stack). I then selected the two pairs of ports to create the "custom topology connection" between them to represent my point to point links. At this point an extra link appeared on my map going directly between the two stack nodes. Despite toggling the various "show connections" options under connections for the map I could not get this extra link to disappear without the links disappearing between my switch ports as well. 

This functionality would create too much un-necessary clutter on the more complicated maps I have to create. 

Another scenario I have is connecting stacks of switches together in a single Data Centre overview. Here to keep the map simple I would want to be able to create two "custom topology connections" between each stack representing the pairs of switch ports in the port group between stacks and therefore showing two lines (links) between the switch stack nodes. I can create the two topology connections but only one link is shown on the map between the two switch stack nodes. 

This is all very easy to do in Network Atlas. The ability to manually draw lines in Network Atlas between objects and then assign a entity to it is really useful for complex diagrams and is a big miss in Orion Maps.

Hopefully the next version of Orion Maps will lessen the gap between it and Network Atlas. For now I am stuck with the dilemma of do I create the maps I need to in Network Atlas not knowing exactly when they will stop working and need to be created again in Orion Maps from scratch.

Ping me directly, and let's set up some time to talk through our current work in progress!

jreves
SD-WAN vEdge Visibility - native device support for the most popular SD-WAN vendors

I interested to know the list of sdwan vendors with this native support

Not sure if I'm just not finding out how to do it, but will discovered links be able to be removed from a map ? I want some maps to only include links that I've manually built, like for a particular circuit provider, from which their links will not manually discover.