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SevOne's Topology reports enable you to automatically view the physical and logical connections between devices in your network. This allows you to view portions of your infrastructure within context, which can be helpful when troubleshooting. For example, you can determine the impact of a device being down by seeing which devices, applications, and services are downstream of that device.
Let's look at how topology works. Since each topology source is unique, we're going to use ARP for our example.
For our example, we have two devices, Device A and Device B. Our devices are connected via ARP. When SevOne NMS discovers Device A, discovery walks a MIB on the device for all attached endpoints ( ARP table ). Discovery looks for a device-object–for example, eth0 on Device B–that has a MAC address stored in metadata. When the matching device-object is found–again, using the example of eth0 on Device B–SevOne's topology creates a half-link between Device A, object Gi1/1 and Device B, object eth0.
Now, let's assume that Device B also has an ARP table that corroborates this connection. When discovery runs on Device B, it finds the same connection in reverse–Device B, object eth0 to Device A, object Gi1/1. When an ARP entry is found, the same process is repeated to return a device-object match for the MAC address of Gi1/1. If the match is returned, topology records the link in the opposite direction, and the link is now considered a full link.
The following topology source protocols/link types are used to discover inter-device relationships at discovery time:
ARP Cache
BGP
CDP
Cisco ACI (Logical)
Cisco ACI (Physical)
Intra Device
LLDP
MPLS LDP
OSPF
STP
STP Trunk
VMware (Logical)
VMware (Physical)
On the Cluster Manager page, you can enable or disable the discovery of topology sources for all device types or specific device types.
With all topology sources enabled, there will be a 10 to 15% performance impact on discovery time. As a result, some devices may take 10 to 15% longer to discover if all topology sources are enabled.
From the navigation bar, click Administration and select Cluster Manager.
On the right side of the page, select the Cluster Settings tab.
On the Cluster Settings tab, scroll down and select the Topology subtab.
Under Device Types, select a device type. To enable or disable a topology source for all device types, select All Device Types.
In the table on the right (Device type: ...), is a list of the available topology sources and their status for the device type that you selected:
- indicates that discovery of the topology source is enabled for the selected device type.
- indicates that discovery of the topology source is disabled for the selected device type
Select a topology source. Under Enabled, click on the current status of the topology source to change it from enabled to disabled or vice versa.
Click Save to save your changes.
Perform the following steps to create a Topology source report using the Report Attachment Wizard.
From the navigation bar, click Reports and select Create Report.
On the Sources page, scroll down and select Topology.
Continue to the next subsection, Resources.
Click the Focal Device drop-down and select the focal device for your topology report.
Click Next and continue to the next subsection, Settings.
In the Number of Hops field, enter the number of hops to display.
Click the Layout Type drop-down and select Horizontal, Vertical, or Concentric.
Click the Directionality drop-down and select one of the following options, depending on what you selected for Layout Type.
Left to Right - applies to Horizontal layout type.
Right to Left - applies to Horizontal layout type.
Top to Bottom - applies to Vertical layout type.
Bottom to Top - applies to Vertical layout type.
Click the Layout Groups drop-down and select a layout group.
Click Next and continue to the next subsection, Filters.
Click the Device Types and Groups drop-down and select the check box for one or more device groups/device types to filter the display results by.
Click the Link Types drop-down and select the check box for one or more link types to filter the display results by.
Click Next and continue to the next subsection, Visualizations.
Under Choose a Graph Height, select Small (480 px), Medium (750 px), or Large (1200 px).
Select the Show All Nodes check box if you would like to display all nodes.
Select the Do not Visualize check box if you like to create this as a hidden attachment. This means that you can chain related attachments to your topology attachment without the topology attachment being visible.
Click Next and continue to the next subsection, Summary.
The Summary page lets you view a summary of the report attachment definition. To make changes to any of the items in the Summary, click on the item. This will take you to the appropriate Report Attachment Wizard page, where you can change settings.
If you don't need to make further changes to the Report Attachment Wizard settings, click Finish to display the report attachment.
In the screenshot above, the solid line indicates a physical connection. The dotted line indicates a logical connection. We'll talk more about the different types of connections in the next section.
The following indicate the type of connection between devices:
Solid line - indicates a logical connection.
Dotted line - indicates a physical connection.
Curved line - indicates a session connection.
Black line - indicates that there is no connection between any of the objects of the devices.
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) data is normally collected from the default gateway router and holds information about the IP to MAC relationship. This doesn't necessarily mean that there's a physical connection between the default router and a device described in the ARP record. In fact, there may be multiple L2 and L1 entities between the two devices. Therefore, ARP data is considered a logical relationship.
A dot next to each device indicates that device's alert severity. If the device has no alerts, the dot is green.
Once you've created your report attachment, you can edit settings to change the display output.
In the upper right corner of the attachment, click to display the Report Attachment Wizard.
The Summary page displays the current report attachment settings. Click on an item to edit it. In the screenshot above, the Filters section isn't listed on the Summary page. This is because no filters have been applied. For our example, we're now going to apply a filter.
On the left side of the Report Attachment Wizard, click on Filters to display the Filters page.
Click the Link Types drop-down and select the check box for a link type to filter the display results by. In the screenshot above, we've selected Logical.
Change any other settings as needed.
Once you're finished making changes, click Finish to display the updated report attachment. In the screenshot below, one of the devices now appears under Unconnected Nodes. This device is still within the number of specified hops and is, in fact, connected to the other two devices that appear. However, it is filtered out as a result of the Link Types filter (Logical) that we applied.
Hover over a node to display the following information:
Device name
Description
Location
Number of objects
Right-click on a node to display available options.
Select Expand to expand the number of hops displayed.
To decrease the number of hops displayed, click in the upper right corner of the report attachment. Then go the Filters page on the Report Attachment Wizard. In the Number of Hops field, specify the number of hops to display.
To zoom in for a closer look, double click on the report attachment.
When you click on Edit Device, SevOne NMS displays the Edit Device page, where you can make changes to the device if necessary.
Click on Manage Objects to view the Object Manager page in SevOne NMS. The Object Manager page displays the objects for the device that you right-clicked on.
Click on Device Summary to display a link to the Device Summary as well as links to report templates if any exist for the device. Then click on the Device Summary link (or a report template link) to display the page in SevOne NMS.
Click on Use as Focal Device if you would like to designate the device as the focal device.
Click on View Alerts to display the Alerts page in SevOne NMS, where you can view any alerts for the device.
On the Device Types page, you can assign an icon to a device type. This icon is used by Topology report attachments.
Perform the following steps to assign an icon to a device type.
From the navigation bar, click Monitoring Configuration and select Device Types.
On the left side of the page, under Device Types, select the check box for the device that you want to assign an icon to. You can also remove an existing icon. The device type icon appears before the device type name.
In the upper right corner of the page, click to display the Upload Device Type icon pop-up.
Click and navigate your file structure to locate the icon to assign to the device.
Once you've selected your icon, click Save. Your new icon should appear at the top of the page in front of the device type name.
Now when you create a Topology report attachment that includes a device belonging to that device type, you'll see the icon that you added.