Creating Extended Device Groups

To create an Extended device group, complete the following:

1. Click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Groups.
2. Click Add to create a top-level, sibling, or child extended group.
3. In the Parent ID field, NetMRI automatically sets the ID of the parent group. It is "0" for a top-level or sibling group.
4. Enter a Name for the group. The group name is shown in all group-related displays and reports, so the group name should be meaningful without being too long.

5. Define a Membership Criteria regular expression.

   Note

   Infoblox recommends using regular expressions for refining the membership in device groups. The topic Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria provides the information you need to understand and define regular expressions for device groups.

6. If you want the device group to include collections of discovered non-network devices, select Include non-network devices. Leaving this setting unselected prevents non-network devices from occupying valuable licensing space.
7. Next to Type, click Extended.
8. Rank: Displays the Ranking value as the default sort order. For more information, see Ranking Device Groups.
9.  Ranking value is used as the default sort order for all group-related tables, with the highest rank shown first. Rank is also used to determine the individual device settings controlling processing for each device.

10. Polling Frequency: Allows you to slow down or speed up the device polling frequency. For more information, see the following section, Setting Polling Frequency for a Device Group.

11. For Switch Port data Collection, choose from the following:

    • Use Global Settings: Select this to enable the device group to inherit global settings for switch port data collections. To find the global settings, click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Global > Switch Port Management. For more information, see Global Switch Port Management Polling Settings.
    • Specify Polling Interval: Overrides the global polling interval with a custom polling interval for the current device group. You can define an interval of 1-60 Minutes or 1-24 Hours in the fields that appear.
    • Specify Schedule: Overrides the global scheduled polling setting with a custom schedule for the current device group. Existing schedules may appear in the list or, click Add New Schedule to create a new polling schedule instance. Choose a Recurrence Pattern of Once, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. In all cases, you must choose an Execution Time and select at least one day of the week checkbox.
    • Poll Now: Click to execute switch port polling on the device group right after it is created.

    • Disable: Completely disables switch port polling for the device group.

    Note

    The polling frequency modifier described in the previous step does not affect settings for switch port data collection frequency.

12. Activate the processing options for the new Extended group:

1. • Collect performance and environmental data Enable or disable device performance and environmental information for all member devices in the group. For more information, see Changing Performance Data Collection Settings.
   • CLI polling in privileged mode: Enable or disable CLI polling in privileged exec mode for the device group. You can override this setting for individual devices in the Device Viewer.
   • Probe for open ports: If enabled, TCP and UDP ports listed at Settings icon > Setup section > Port List are probed to determine whether they are open.
     • Analyze device using fingerprinting: If enabled, fingerprinting attempts to identify each device based on the response characteristics of the TCP stack being used.
   • Probe for NetBIOS name: Setting to enable NetMRI to collect the NetBIOS names for endpoint device members in the device group. For more information, see Defining Group Data Collection Settings. It is globally disabled by default to prevent unexpected scanning of the network by a new Operations Center Collector.
   • Analyze for Issues: NetMRI evaluates over 250 discrete Issues, plus custom Issues defined by the admin user. Issues are discovered and reported by NetMRI based on globally set schedules. Disabling this feature for a device group disallows the group from being selectable in the Device Group Selector panel in the main Network Analysis –> Issues page. For more information, see Evaluating Issues in NetMRI, and Viewing Device Issues, Configurations and Changes.
   • Test for default credentials: Allows NetMRI to test all devices in the group for the presence of vendor default SNMP credentials, which are a potential element for security breaches, but are also used for assistance in collecting device configurations. Credential default testing is also a compliance measure.
   • Collect config files: When enabled, this checkbox allows NetMRI to collect all present configuration files for devices in the device group. To participate in the Configuration Management feature set, which allows you to view and compare differences between running-config and saved-config configuration files, edit, and manage config files on devices. For more information, see Configuration Management.
     • Regard configurations as 'Locked': Disallows editing of any collection configuration files for members of the device group.
   • Allow script execution: Allows the execution of Perl and CCS scripts on member devices.
   • Refresh device caches before collecting switch port data: Checkbox to enable refreshing of ARP caches on switches and switch-routers in the managed network before NetMRI performs polling of switch ports.
     Enabling this feature will not produce an automatic ping sweep of the managed network. For more information on ping sweep, see Defining Group Data Collection Settings. The benefit of this feature is that it enables more accurate detection of all endpoint devices on switches. Without ARP refresh, some endpoint devices may not be detected. This feature is globally disabled by default. With this setting globally enabled, individual device groups can also be set to enable or disable this feature.
     
     For more detailed descriptions of these options, see Global > Network Polling and Config Management.

13. Select the Enable Discovery Blackout checkbox and click its Scheduling icon. The scheduling options appear.

1. 1. In the Recurrence Pattern dropdown, choose how often you want to execute the blackout period. You can select Once, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
   2. If you choose Once:
   • • Choose an Execution Time from the drop-down list.
     • Enter the date of the blackout, in the Day_of_ field.
     • Specify the Duration: 10 or more Minutes, Hours, or Days.

c. If you choose Daily, click either Every Day or Every Weekday:

1. • • Choose an Execution Time from the drop-down list.
     • Specify the Duration: 10 or more Minutes, Hours, or Days.

d. If you choose Weekly, complete the following:

1. • • Choose an Execution Time from the drop-down list.
     • Select one or more days from Sunday through Saturday.
     • Specify the Duration: 10 or more Minutes, Hours, or Days.

e. If you choose Monthly, complete the following:

1. • • Choose an Execution Time from the drop-down list.
     • Schedule the day of the month: A discovery blackout can be executed monthly on a specific day, or blackout instances can be executed more than one month apart on a specific day, in the Day of every month(s) field.
     • Specify the Duration: 10 or more Minutes, Hours, or Days.

14. If necessary, select the Enable Change Blackout checkbox and click its Scheduling icon. The scheduling options appear. Follow steps 12a through 12e to define the change blackout schedule.

15. Click Save & Close or Save & New.