Unified Assurance Topology Gather Network Inventory

Overview

The Unified Assurance Topology Gather Network Inventory application gathers information about the network from devices in the device catalog using SNMP and enters it into inventory tables. This information is also used to create topology layout in the graph database. Here are types of information that will be discovered by default:

ARP entries
Bridge ports
CDP neighbors
Cisco VLANs
Interfaces
IP addresses
LLDP neighbors
MAC addresses
Ports
Routes
Trunks

Gather Network Inventory Setup

Devices must exist in the Device Catalog for this application to be able to function. Devices can be created in several different ways:
1. Using the Device Auto Discovery application (Core Device Auto Discovery). See the application documentation for additional information.
2. Using the Manual Discovery UI:
  
  Configuration -> Device Discovery -> Manual Discovery
3. Manually entering all values using the Devices UI:
  
  Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Devices
Devices must by SNMP discovered for this application to be able to get data from the devices. See the Device SNMP Discovery application (Core Device SNMP Discovery) for additional information.
Enable the default Job, unless a specific configuration option is needed.

Configuration -> Broker Control -> Jobs

Default Scheduled Job

Field	Value
Package Name	coreCollection-app
Job Name	Topology Gather Network Inventory
Job Program	bin/core/collection/GatherNetworkInventory
Job Arguments
Job Description	Gather network inventory details from routers and switches
Failover Type	Standalone (Supported: Standalone, Primary/Backup)
Status	Disabled
Privileged	(Checked)
Minutes	0
Hours	11
Days	*
Months	*
WeekDays	*

Default Configuration

Name	Value	Possible Values	Notes
BaseRules	collection/topology/inventory/base.rules	Text, 1-255 characters	Relative path to Base Rules.
BranchDir	core/default	Text, 255 characters	relative path to Rules dir.
IncludeRules	collection/topology/inventory/base.includes	Text, 1-255 characters	Relative path to Include Rules.
LoadRules	collection/topology/inventory/base.load	Text, 1-255 characters	Relative path to Load Rules.
LogFile	logs/TopologyGatherNetworkInventory.log	Text, 255 characters	Relative path to Log File.
LogLevel	ERROR	OFF, FATAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG	Logging level used by application.
Threads	3	Integer	Number of processing threads created.
TimeOut	5	Integer	The time out for the SNMP connection.
DBThreads		Integer	Optional - Number of database threads to be created. If not specified, defaults to a third (rounded up) of "Threads" application configuration.
DeviceGroupID		Integer	Optional - This entry is used to get a more specific list of devices to be polled for data. If 0, all device groups are gathered.
DeviceZoneID		Integer	Optional - This entry is used to get a more specific list of devices to be polled for data. If 0, all device zones are gathered.
InterfaceType		Text, 1-255 characters	Optional - Overrides which value is used when creating the interface vertices. Possible values are "IfName", "IfDescr", "IfAlias", "IfIndex".
Limit		Integer	Optional - Limits routes retrieved to this number. Defaults to 200 if no value is provided.
PreferIPv4	Disabled	Enabled/Disabled	Optional - When present and set to true, GatherNetworkInventory will attempt to connect to remote devices using IPv4 if available.
Skip		Text, 255 characters.	Optional - Comma separated list of items not to be retrieved. Possible values are "Int", "IP", "Route", "CDP", "LLDP", "Trunk", "ARP", "VLAN", "MAC".

Best Practices

The following list shows you best practices for gathering network inventory.

The Topology Gather Network Inventory job is configured to run at 11:00 am every day.
Some devices with high interface counts can have trouble returning usable inventory data to the application using the default get-bulk SNMP request method. While the application may fall back to a get-next request, it slows down the discovery as it has to make multiple requests for the same data from the device.
- The following warning indicates issues with using get-bulk SNMP requests for a device:
```
[WARN] abc.example.com(xxx) [Interface Names]: "No Values Returned [The message size exceeded the buffer maxMsgSize of xxx]"
```
  To optimize the gather for these high interface count devices, add the following MetaTag to the device to indicate the application should use get-next SNMP requests to obtain the data more reliably:
```
Type: SNMP, Value: ForceGetNext
```

Administration Details

The following list shows the technical details needed for advanced administration of the application:

Package - coreCollection-app
Synopsis - ./GatherNetworkInventory [OPTIONS]

Options

 -c, --AppConfigID N   Application Config ID (Service, Job, or Request ID)
 -d, --DeviceID N      DeviceID (Optional)
 -?, -h, --Help        Print usage and exit

Threaded - Multi-Threaded

Title and Copyright Information

Implementation Guide

F59716-01