Using the Guided Network Discovery Flow

This chapter describes the guided Network Discovery flow, a step-by-step process for creating and running a Network Discovery Job in a structured, guided manner. A Network Discovery Job scans your network using preferred protocols on scheduled intervals to keep your inventory up to date.

You can access the guided Network Discovery flow from the Network Discovery UI by clicking Create Discovery Job.

To open the Network Discovery UI, from the main navigation menu, select Configuration, then Metrics, then NPM, and then Discovery Jobs.

Note:

To access these UIs, you need to deploy the Web UI and Web API microservices. See Setting Up Microservices for NPM.

About the Network Discovery UI

You can use the Network Discovery UI to view previously created discovery jobs and to create new jobs.

The interface includes the following key components:

Search and filters: Lets you search jobs by name, status, or zone. Use the filter chips to filter the job list (for example, by Created On, Discovered, Last Run, Name, Status, and Zone).
Create Discovery Job button: Opens the Create Discovery Job guided flow to create a new discovery job.
Jobs table: Lists previously created discovery jobs with each row representing one discovery job.

Jobs Table

The jobs table displays all the discovery jobs along with key details in the following columns:

Name: The job name.
ID: The unique identifier for the job.
Zone: The zone associated with the job.
Created On: The date and time the job was created.
Last Run: The date and time the job most recently ran.
Schedule: The configured schedule for the job. If no schedule is configured, this may be shown as -.
Discovered: The number of devices discovered by the job.
Status: The current state of the job such as Completed or In Progress.
Run: Runs the selected discovery job.
More actions (ellipsis menu): Actions available for the particular job, such as editing, cloning, or deleting depending on the availability.

Creating a Discovery Job

The guided Network Discovery window that opens up when you click Create Discovery Job contains a panel with the following tasks:

Add Discovery Details
Select Discovery Method
Define Network
Assign Profiles
Configure Schedule

Add Discovery Details

Provide a name and optional description for the discovery job you want to create. You also need to select the tenant and zone to associate with the job in this section.

Select Discovery Method

Choose the discovery methods you want to use to scan and identify devices.

The discovery methods are organized into the following levels:

Level 1 - Basic Reachability
- ICMP Availability: Uses ICMP ("ping") to check if devices are reachable.
- ICMP Performance: Uses ICMP to gather performance-related measurements.
Level 2 - Standard Protocols
- SNMP Availability: Uses SNMP to retrieve device information such as status, interfaces, and performance metrics.
- SNMP Performance: Uses SNMP to gather detailed performance-related data from devices.
Level 3 - API Based Integrations
- VMware: Uses VMware APIs to discover and retrieve information about virtual infrastructure.
- Cisco Meraki: Uses Cisco Meraki APIs to discover and monitor Meraki-managed environments.
- Aruba: Uses Aruba APIs to discover and monitor Aruba-managed environments.

Define Network

Specify the IP addresses you want to scan to discover devices. Select the IP address version and provide targets using IP ranges, subnets, or individual IPv4 addresses, and optionally list addresses to exclude from discovery.

Note:

You can only select IPv4 for the IP address version.

Assign Profiles

Assign the protocol-specific profiles required to authenticate to devices during discovery. A profile stores the connection and authentication details required to access targets during discovery. Using profiles also lets you reuse the same vetted credentials and connection settings across multiple discovery jobs, rather than entering them each time.

Note:

You can only assign authentication profiles for discovery methods from Level 2 - Standard Protocols and Level 3 - API Based Integrations in the Select Discovery Method section.

Configure Schedule

Set when the discovery job runs, including the scheduling mode, start date, and time. You can also choose how to handle discovered devices for monitoring; either review and select devices to monitor or automatically monitor all results. Optionally, run the discovery job immediately after creating it.

Title and Copyright Information

Network Performance Management Reporting Guide

G49449-01