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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.

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Infoblox NIOS software, running on Infoblox appliances, delivers core network services—including DNS, DNSSEC, DHCP, IPAM, HTTP, FTP, TFTP, NTP and others—that are important to the operation of all IP-based networks. IP address management (IPAM) functionality is built in to Infoblox NIOS software and includes a comprehensive suite of functions that support address allocation, management, and reporting.

Use the Settings icon –> Setup –> NIOS IPAM Sync tab to configure NetMRI to populate You can configure a NetMRI instance to synchronize with the NIOS IPAM database and populate it with the NetMRI IP network discovery data compiled by a NetMRI instance. During a runsynchronization, device data (IP addresses and other data), subnets/DHCP networks, or both are exported . A synchronization can be run immediately or scheduled from NetMRI to NIOS through a CSV file. You can run a synchronization immediately or schedule for future times.

NetMRI tracks the last time it has successfully communicated with a device via NMAP (used for fingerprinting), SNMP, and telnet/SSH/HTTP. This timestamp information appears in the Network Explorer –> Discovery page in NetMRI. To provide the most accurate possible timestamp, the protocols used to generate the timestamps also includes ICMP Ping and NetBIOS communications protocols. This allows NetMRI to track the last time it communicated with a device across any related protocols. Ping and NetBIOS data results are not directly displayed in the Network Explorer –> Discovery page.During IPAM Sync operations, NetMRI  NetMRI uses the maximum timestamp for a given device (i.e. across all protocols) to populate the timestamp value that is sent to the NIOS system. This is defined as the last_discovered_timestamp IPAM Sync data fieldNIOS.

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.

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• Network Views: Be aware of overlapping subnets and IP addresses. If you execute IPAM Sync several times, do not export different NetMRI network views to the same NIOS network view. Otherwise, some discovered data may be lost.
• Device reachability: Once a device became unreachable, it remains visible in NetMRI for some time, but it will not be exported to NIOS. If you see the device in NetMRI, but not in NIOS, check the device interfaces and reachability. Some of the interfaces may become disconnected. Additionally, check if the corresponding device subnet is displayed in the list of subnets in NetMRI.

For how to add, edit, and delete a sync configuration, see the next section, Configuring IPAM Sync.

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• NetMRI

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Also, see the following sections for additional information about NIOS IPAM Sync:

• Overlay/Overwrite Logic
• Delivering NetMRI Discovered Data to IPAM

Configuring IPAM Sync

This section describes the following:

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To add a sync configuration, complete the following:

1. Click In Settings –> Setup –> NIOS IPAM Sync –> Add Sync Configuration in the upper left corner.
   The Sync configuration  Sync configuration wizard opens.
2. In Step 1 of the Wizard, enter the NIOS Grid Master IP address or host name, with user name and password. For standalone NIOS deployments, enter the IP address or host name of the NIOS device. The default login credentials are admin/infoblox.
3. Click Next.

   
   

   Note
   title Note
   Make sure the NIOS system is reachable before attempting a connection, and ensure you have the correct admin account and password. The specified username and password also must provide access to the Infoblox DMAPI (Data and Management API). Any NIOS administrator account can be set to allow API access from within NIOS with an Allowed Interfaces setting of API. Consult the Infoblox API Documentation guide for the version of NIOS in the current operation for more details, and consult the NIOS Administration Guide for the procedure on defining API interface access for an admin account.

   
   

4. In Step 2, in NS1 Network View, select default as the view to which to export data. This information is obtained from the Infoblox Grid Master.
5. In NetMRI Network View, select the required view.
6. In Time restriction, select Include all data, regardless of polling time.
   
   In versions prior to 7.3.1, NetMRI sent data collected from devices that were successfully polled within the last two hours. This restriction was removed in version 7.3.1. You can request to export all data regardless of last successful device polling time or data from devices successfully polled in the last several hours.
7. Activate Synchronize Device Information if devices (IP addresses) are to be included in the synchronization.
8. If you enabled the synchronization of device information and you want to include end host IP addresses into NIOS IPAM Sync, select Include addresses from ARP tables.
   By default, only routers IP addresses are included into NIOS IPAM Sync. Selecting this option allows you to export IP addresses of end hosts from ARP tables of discovered devices to NIOS IP Map, along with routers IP addresses. These end hosts are listed in a separate tab in NetMRI: Network Explorer -> Switch Port Management -> End Hosts -> End Host Present. If the discovery engine does not recognize a device as infrastructure or network device, it is treated as end host. Data displayed for end hosts collected from ARP tables includes the IP address, MAC address, and Last Discovered and First Discovered stamps.
   

   
   

   Note
   title Note
   Retrieving end hosts IPs based on ARP entries does not guarantee accurate results as the lifetime of ARP tables entries on network devices is very limited (e.g., up to 5 minutes officially, 10 minutes in real life for Cisco IOS-based devices) and the amount of tables entries is relatively small.

   
   

9. To add internal subnets as networks in NIOS, activate the Add IPAM networks for subnets within NetMRI discovery ranges option. This will export subnets discovered by NetMRI and classified as internal (i.e., within the defined discovery ranges). To export all internal subnets, select the All option. To limit the exported internal subnets, select the Restrict to subnet s within the following summary routes option, and enter a list of summary routes. Separate each route with a comma, or put each on a new line. Subnets within a listed summary route are exported. For example, to export only the subnets in a class A 10 network, enter 10.0.0.0/8.
10. To add external subnets as networks in NIOS, activate the Add IPAM networks for subnets outside of NetMRI discovery ranges option. This will export subnets discovered by NetMRI and classified as external (i.e., outside the defined CIDR blocks). To export all external subnets, select the All option. To limit the exported external subnets, select the Restrict to subnets within the following summary routes option, and enter a list of summary routes as described above for internal subnets.
11. Click Next.
12. In Step 3, if you want to schedule synchronization, select Schedule Enabled. This is optional. If you do not schedule a synchronization, you can execute a synchronization at any time. For information, see the next section.
13. Select a Recurrence Pattern, Execution Time, and day (this is the starting day for repetitive synchronizations).
14. Click Next.
15. In Step 4, review the sync configuration. Click < Previous if you need to change any settings.
16. Click Finish.

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1. In Settings –> Setup –> NIOS IPAM Sync, select Sync in the Actions column for the required sync configuration. 
2. Click Yes to confirm.
   The IPv4 and IPv6 networks are CSV import of discovered data to NIOS is performed. The IPv4 and IPv6 networks are added to the NIOS appliance database. Also, the CSV import of discovered data is performed.

Open the NIOS GUI and verify that all the data are imported in

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to NIOS

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The following table lists the data fields in the CSV file used for IPAM Sync data fields that are exported from NetMRI to NIOS:

Overlay/Overwrite Logic

The following overlay/overwrite logic applies to IPAM Sync, complete the following:

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Overlay/Overwrite Logic

The following overlay/overwrite logic applies to IPAM Sync:

• 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:

• IP addresses data: IPAM –> select a network –> IP List.
• Networks data: IPAM –> Networks.

The following table helps to locate IPAM Sync discovered data in the NetMRI UI.

Fields related to Cisco ACI data (tenant, bridge_domain, endpoint_groups) are specific for SDN elements and controllers.

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Supporting Cisco Discovery Service Supporting Cisco Discovery Service

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Supporting Cisco Discovery Service

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:

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