Device Actions in Switch Port Management

In Switch Port Management (SPM), devices denote network switches and switch-routers only. End hosts are counted as a separate category. The Devices pages provide the views of all the distribution and LAN switches and switch-routers in the managed network.

The Action column on the far left of any Device-related table (such as Devices Present), provides the following functions for switching device management from the NetMRI console:

• View Device History: Choosing this option displays the Device Viewer in a separate browser window. The device window automatically displays the Device History, with the most recent History record at the top. In the Device History view, the First Seen time stamp is the first time the device's MAC address was discovered.

• The Last Seen timestamp represents the most recent time that NetMRI communicated with the device (often the most recent polling event). The device Name is the configured name of the switching device. The device's IP address is also shown, along with the DNS Name if any. A standard Description (taken directly from the device) is given along with the Poll Duration. If the Poll Duration shows a value of "1" the polling process completed in the normal time period.
  SPM tracks MAC addresses and their associated IP and switch port history. SPM separately maintains an active record of all MACs ever seen by the NetMRI system, along with their associated connectivity information.Unique identities for all detected End Hosts are established by their respective MAC addresses.

• Open Telnet Session: Uses the Telnet/SSH proxy built-in to NetMRI to start a Telnet session with the selected device.

• Open SSH Session: Uses the Telnet/SSH proxy built-in to NetMRI to start an SSH session with the selected device.

• Topology Viewer: Through a second-level dropdown menu, gives quick access to Layer 2 and Layer 3 views of the network topology surrounding the chosen device. If the selected device is classified as a Switch, only the L2nHop and L2/L3PathViewer topology views are available.

  • L2 nHop: Shows the devices that can be reached from a starting device through a given number of Level 2 (actually a hybrid of L1 and L2) connections.

  • L3 nHop: Shows devices that can be reached from a starting device through a given number of routed Level 3 connections.

  • L3 Path Viewer: Shows the most likely path traffic would take, ignoring Layer 2 connectivity and concentrating on L3 reachability and the "best" path for communication between Layer 3 devices.

  • L2/L3 Path Viewer: Shows the most likely path traffic would take between two devices, including both Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity.

For more information, see Using the Topology Viewer.