NetMRI discovery depends on a collection of under-the-hood features to ensure that polling and addition of devices in the network proceed smoothly and accurately. This chapter describes the three following critical tasks.
Defining Data Collection and Device Groups: You must define important settings for network polling. This topic involves the processes of data collection and polling of devices across the network, including polling of switched Ethernet devices. The definition of device and interface groups is discussed in other topics later in this Guide. For more information, see Defining Group Data Collection Settings.
Note title Note See Creating Device Groups for information on the Groups tab and its associated functions.
- ManagingSNMPandCLICredentials: Credentials are a critical component for discovery and Configuration Management. You can define global default values for admin account logins, enable passwords, and also define admin account logins and enable passwords on individual devices. For more information, see Adding and Editing Device Credentials.
- DebuggingandManagingCollectionResults: When data collection and polling stops for any reason, NetMRI provides methods for determining the cause of the failure and ways to fix it. See Debugging Issues in Discovery and Data Collection and Running Discovery Diagnostics for more information.
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
...
Group data collection settings (Settings icon –> Setup –> Collection and Groups) settings define global NetMRI settings for discovery and configuration management:
...
Global tab settings in the Network Polling panel (Settings icon –> Setup –> Collection and Groups –> Global tab –> Network Polling side tab) provide system-level control over NetMRI's SNMP and discovery data collection operations.
...
| Note | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||
Smart subnet ping sweeps should not be attempted on subnets larger than /22. Ping sweeps are
|
...
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
See the section Global Switch Port Management Polling Settings for more information on global settings for switch port polling. |
- ARP Collection Priority: (Available in full NetMRI license) Defines the collection method for collecting ARP databases from devices. When set to CLI with SNMP Fallback, NetMRI collects ARP data from devices with the CLI when NetMRI has the appropriate access credentials for the active network device. This mode of collection works only for Cisco devices , and will fall back to SNMP if CLI access does not work. SNMP data collection is used for active devices from all other vendors.
- Route Collection Priority: (Available in full NetMRI product license) This setting controls which collection method is attempted first when collecting route tables. Should the Route Collection Priority setting be set to SNMP (default), you will also need to pay attention to the Route Limit setting under Advanced Settings (see NetMRI Advanced Settings). If NetMRI encounters a routing table with a table of entries beyond the Route Limit setting, SNMP collection for the current device will be stopped, and CLI collection for the routing table will be tried instead. When set to CLI with SNMP Fallback, NetMRI will try to use CLI commands to collect route tables from devices instead of immediately using SNMP. The CLI option may reduce data collection performance problems for routers with large route tables.
...
The Collection and Groups feature set also specifies the protocols allowed for configuration collection. You specify the Collectors of network data for NetMRI through the Config Management
section of the Global page (Settings icon –> Setup –> Collection and Groups –> Global –> Config Management).Anchor bookmark154 bookmark154
...
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
SNMP and/or CLI Credentials can be specified within the Device Viewer for individual devices. Should such a credential not work for a given device, or if command-line access is lost for a given device, NetMRI will always re-guess credentials from the global credential list, including vendor defaults if available. See the sections Adding and Testing SNMP Credentials for a Device and Adding and Testing CLI Credentials for a Device for more information. |
The Device Viewer offers dedicated CLI Credentials and SNMP Credentials pages (Settings icon –> Setup –> CLI Credentials and Settings icon –> Setup –> SNMP Credentials) to globally manage and test CLI and SNMP credentials. See About SNMP Credentials, About CLI Credentials, and Credential Import Formats for further details about credential definition.
...
You can test any SNMP credential against any currently discovered or cataloged device. You can also import sets of SNMPv3 credentials from a Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Values (.CSV) data file. The topic Credential Import Formats describes, with examples, the required data structure.
...
The following sections detail the syntax for CIDR address block data files imported through corresponding tabs in the Discovery Settings page (see Configuring Network Discovery Settings) and in the Setup Wizard's Discovery Ranges, Static IPs, and Seed Routers steps (see Running the Setup Wizard for more information). It also includes syntax guidelines for importing CISCO APIC information.
...
For how to configure a synchronization, see Configuring IPAM Sync. This section also lists IPAM Sync data fields that are exported from NetMRI to NIOS.
For how to execute a configured NIOS IPAM Sync, see Synchronizing Between NetMRI and NIOS Appliances.
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
NetMRI supports synchronization of IPv6 subnet and address information between NetMRI and target NIOS systems, to automatically define networks in IPAM. Some subnetworks may not be reported to NIOS during IPAM Sync owing to their addressing being part of MPLS VPNs. |
...
For additional information about NIOS IPAM Sync, see Overlay/Overwrite Logic
Anchor Configuring IPAM Sync Configuring IPAM Sync
Configuring IPAM Sync
| Configuring IPAM Sync | |
| Configuring IPAM Sync |
This section describes the following:
...
Now you can run the configured synchronization between NetMRI and NIOS. For more information, see the next section, Synchronizing Between NetMRI and NIOS Appliances.
To edit a sync configuration, perform the following:
...
- Network sync: Newly-imported subnets are imported as “managed”.
- If the imported subnet conflicts with an existing subnet, it is not accepted. The imported subnet can go into a container as long as there is no conflict.
- If the subnet already exists, no changes are made.
- If the subnet is in IPAM but not in NetMRI, it is left in IPAM.
- IP address sync: New IP addresses are added and marked as “unmanaged”. If an IP address already exists, the field values is overwritten during the import.
- Before NetMRI 7.1.4 and NIOS 8.1, if the IP address exists in IPAM but it is not in the import file, it is left in IPAM.
- As of NetMRI 7.1.4 and NIOS 8.1, if the IP address exists in IPAM but it is not in the import file, its discovered data is cleared out. You can control the time that the IP address stays in the NetMRI database after it is no longer discovered under NetMRI. To do so, go to Setup -> General Settings -> Advanced Settings.
Viewing IPAM Sync Discovered Data in NetMRI and NIOS
In NIOS, you can view the data discovered by NetMRI and synchronized using IPAM Sync as follows:
...
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Anchor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
NetMRI automatically supports an Infoblox utility, Cisco Discovery Service, that enables network administrators to provide Cisco-validated reporting and analysis. NetMRI operates as a Cisco Discovery Service-enabled system supporting discovery of network systems for analysis and management. You can use the CDS Integration Tool as part of a new NetMRI installation, or use the tool to extract further insight and value from an existing deployment. Cisco Gold Partner status is required for effective use of the software utility.
NetMRI supports CDS API version 2.0 and uses a NetMRI device or virtual machine to inspect all aspects of a network's Cisco infrastructure to collect the following information:
...