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First Impression Feature Ideas

1.  I posted this in another thread, but since I'm making an idea thread - thought a restating might not be bad.

Tighter integration with NPM.  Device names and SNMP credentials are already stored there.  Pull the routing tables via SNMP and make a list of networks, then a simple check-box for manage this subnet or don't would be nice.

Some kind of indicator if a node discovered is managed by NPM after the scan.  Or a report.  Or alerts.   A link to click to add discovered system to NPM like the APM has.  Or all of the above.

2. Integration with DHCP server.

I'm not sure how this information could be pulled.  Perhaps in the m$ dhcp server it can be grabbed from WMI.  Perhaps a direct read of the files from the hard drive (which would probably have to be how it'd be pulled from *nix dhcp servers).  For routers, I'd guess you'd have to telnet/ssh in to get the info.

Anyhow, it's not much good knowing there's 87 addresses free on a segment if only 2 of them are available in DHCP.

Also, could then make a new color for the graphs for DHCP available.  Could merge transient with DHCP leases for which there's no ping response giving more accuracy there.

Also, could then do alerts for systems that are up in a DHCP range but have no lease.  There's one that really annoys me - some people seem to think that if they want a static IP, they can just switch to manual and pick an address.  GRRRR!  Alerts based on this one so I can say "Who touched this PC last?!"

3. A port scanner might be a nice bolt-on extra.  When a system is discovered, scan it.  Maybe once a day afterwards...

Who's running a rogue web server?  Who's got a P2P app running?  Less common now, but maybe not unheard of... a virus may open a port to accept instructions... which of my PCs has that port open?

4. System identification (along the lines of NMAP) might also be cool. 

5. Workstations discovered... are they a part of my domain?  Some sort of NETBios scan... who's logged into it?

6. SNMP... Policy might be that no device uses 'public' for a snmp string... can you alert me or give me a report of things out there that are?  Maybe by segment... maybe it's ok for printers to use public, but nothing else...

 

While IPAM is useful as a replacement for the evil spreadsheet of IP addresses, it seems that it'd really obtain a key position if it were able to help me enforce my policies across the network.  If any of these ideas are possible, I think it'd be awesome...

Jason

P.S. Do I get a discount for every idea you decide you like and implement?  :)

  • Terrific feedback, a bunch of these items like DHCP integration, alerting are the direction where we are heading with future releases.  I have documented all of these in our system.

  • Agree with all of the above :)

    Am also trying the Eval right now - 

    A few other things I would like to see
    1. ability to colour the entire row based on whether it's static/reserved/dynamic so it's easier to view.

    2. ability to select multiple rows and EDIT them at once to set Static/Dynamic/Comments etc  Setting each row one by one to Static is very annoying...

    3. option to add the device to NPM (its a nice way to discover new devices!

    4. automatically detect if the device is already managed by NPM so you can click on it and get the NPM page


    5. and my number ONE desire - the ability to map all these discovered hostnames to the switch ports that are being managed by NPM!  One of the things I've always missed in NPM is that although it could bring down all this useful port info etc it doesn't tie them to IP or hostnames - surely using the data pulled from IPAM we could get that extra bonus of getting the IP address and hostname into NPM for use with the switch port information?  That would really show the power of something like IPAM integrated with NPM to give you the full picture.

     


    A few problems I have noticed - 

    1. getting a "good" scan seems to take multiple scans before it has the entire subnet (when using a /24) often I've seen it only get the first 50-100 ips before it stops and incorrectly marks the rest of the ips as available.  Then you do a few more scans and finally it gets them all...

    2. When I incorrectly set a subnet to /27 and tried to switch it to /26 using the subnet properties - everything updated on the subnet properties - but the subnet list still only showed a /27 based subnet list and wouldn't update to show the additional ips - I tried multiple scans but no joy.  Finally deleted the subnet and re-added it and it was fine again.


     First impressions of the product idea is that its a nice way to manage IPs - although costwise I'm not convinced yet since there is a bit more functionality I would like to see before coughing up large amounts of money to replace my spreadsheets...  

    Having said that - I'll see how the evaluation goes - and obviously any hint Solarwinds can give on the future functionality of the product would be very helpful in deciding what we're going to do about this product...

    Thanks guys!

  • Tighter integration with NPM.  Device names and SNMP credentials are already stored there.  Pull the routing tables via SNMP and make a list of networks, then a simple check-box for manage this subnet or don't would be nice.

    Much agreed. That would make the product more wizard driven and easier for first time setup

    Some kind of indicator if a node discovered is managed by NPM after the scan.  Or a report.  Or alerts.   A link to click to add discovered system to NPM like the APM has.  Or all of the above.

    Ditto

    2. Integration with DHCP server.

    I agree, but given the diversity of different DHCP servers out there, which to integrate IPAM with is a hard decision. I would probably recommend leveraging Cisco's DHCP snooping, or do something creative like a DHCP listener service and use the ip helper address to point to the Orion server.

    4. System identification (along the lines of NMAP) might also be cool. 

    I'd be happy if the product contained a vendor MAC-Address database so it could readily identify the manufacturer the MAC address belongs to and the display that vendors icon in the IP address table.

    5. Workstations discovered... are they a part of my domain?  Some sort of NETBios scan... who's logged into it?

    Perhaps some sort of integration into Microsoft WINS might be helpful. Given there aren't the number of different WINs vendors out there like there are for DHCP servers, this sort of integration might make sense.