Starting Discovery

To ensure a successful discovery, complete the following:

1. In the Grid, install valid Discovery licenses on the Network Insight supported members that will later become the Consolidator and Probes. For information about how to install licenses, see Managing Licenses.
2. When you join the discovery members to the Grid, the first member automatically becomes the Consolidator while the others become Probes. If you want to change the roles of these members after they join the Grid, you can re-define their member types, as described in Defining the Discovery Member Type. If you have only one discovery member, it automatically becomes the Consolidator-Probe appliance after it joins the Grid. For more information about the Consolidator and Probes, see Consolidator and Probes.
3. Configure applicable admin permissions for managing discovery and discovered data. For more information, see Administrative Permissions for Discovery.
4. Define discovery interfaces and map them to corresponding network views. This step is especially important for discovering VRF virtual networks. For more information, see Mapping Discovery Interfaces to Network Views.
5. Configure Grid discovery properties such as defining polling settings, configuring SNMP and CLI credentials, and configuring automatic VRF mapping. For more information, see Configuring Discovery Properties. Note that you can override the Grid settings at the member and network levels, except for automatic VRF mapping which can be configured only at the Grid level.

6. Optionally, you can configure seed routers and map them to the corresponding network views. You can also use the default gateways for associated DHCP ranges and networks as seed routers for discovery by selecting the Use DHCP Routers as Seed Routers in the General -> Advanced tab of the Grid Discovery Properties editor. For more information about Defining Seed Routers for Probe Members and Defining Advanced Polling Settings for the Grid, see Configuring Discovery Properties.
   
   Note that you must map each discovery interface, seed, and VRF to its respective network view in order to have a successful discovery for virtual routing instances.

7. Specify a network view, network container, or network to be discovered. For more information, see Discovering Devices and Networks.
8. Optionally, define IP address exclusions when you want to exclude certain IPs from a discovery for various reasons. For more information, see Excluding IP Addresses from Discovery.
9. Define blackout periods when you do not want the appliance to perform discovery. For information about how to configure blackout periods, see Defining Blackout Periods.
10. Start the discovery service on the Consolidator and Probes to begin discovery, as described in Starting the Discovery Service, see Starting and Stopping the Discovery Service. The Probe members continue to discover network devices within the defined networks.