Discovering Devices
Learn about the device discovery process, as well as the different methods of adding devices to Unified Assurance.
Tasks
The following list shows you the tasks involved in discovering devices:
Prerequisites
Before adding devices to Unified Assurance, determine the following:
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Names for the device zone, the device group, and so on. This can be a customer name, a generic physical location, such as the United States or Europe, or something else relevant to your installation.
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If sharding is in use for this environment, determine whether the devices being discovered will store their data on the default shard or a different shard.
Creating a Device Zone
Grouping specific devices into a particular zone can be used for organization or for polling purposes. This provides scoping for discovery and proactive polling, ensuring that devices within a zone are accessed by monitoring components in that zone. Multiple devices with the same IP address must be in separate zones for proper polling.
Note:
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Device zones are mutually exclusive groupings of devices. Devices can only belong to one device zone.
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Device zones are commonly used for polling or active collection so that collectors and/or pollers can be distributed to various locations.
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Devices can be moved to a different zone one device at a time using the Devices UI, or multiple devices at a time using the Device Management UI and selecting the Move Device to Zone action.
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Go to the Device Zones UI:
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Click Add to add a new zone.
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Enter a name for the zone.
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Click Submit to create the zone.
Creating a Device Group
A device group associates devices together to provide common functionality. You can use device groups for navigation, security, command and control, and limiting the number of devices for polling.
Note:
Unified Assurance supports non-mutually exclusive groupings of devices. One device can belong to multiple device groups.
Unified Assurance uses device grouping in several ways, including the following:
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Navigation - Making devices that are related easier to find.
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Restriction Grouping - Device access can be restricted and provide multitenant functionality to any device-based function.
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Reporting - TopN and Inventory Overviews that allow applicable comparisons.
Hierarchies of device groups can be created through the establishment of parent and children groups. At the top level of the hierarchy, there is a single Root group which contains all devices. Subgroups or children can be created off the main level. Additional child groups can be created within each subgroup to categorize devices within groups, thus creating a hierarchical structure.
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Go to the Device Groups UI:
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Select the Root device group and then click Add to add a new device group.
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Enter a name for the group.
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Click Submit to create the group.
Updating an Existing Device Group
When updating the devices that are part of an existing device group, the Devices picker is used to select the devices that should be added to the group, or remove devices that should not be part of the group.
WARNING:
A device must be a member of at least one device group. If trying to update a group to remove a device and a warning is shown, that device must be added to another group before it can be removed from the existing group.
The Remove from other groups checkbox can be used and when selected, any devices added to this group will also be removed from any other groups.
Preparing the Device Auto Discovery job
The Device Auto Discovery application uses the defined Inclusion Profiles and Exclusion Profiles to find and record new devices on the network. After a device has been discovered and added to the database, the device information is sent to rules for additional custom processing that may be needed. All initially discovered devices appear in the Devices UI with a Status of Verified.
A job should be created to discover the devices in the new zone, and can also put the devices in the new group.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Device Auto Discovery job, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Device Auto Discovery - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Check the Scheduled checkbox, then make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every Friday at 23:59.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceGroupID to the newly created device group.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/DeviceAutoDiscovery-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Optional: If using sharding and the devices will have data stored on a different shard, in the Configuration section, change the ShardID to the correct value.
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Optional: In the Configuration section, change the Threads to a larger value. More threads means more system memory will be used, but discovery will complete faster overall.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the job.
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Discovering the Devices
Devices can be discovered using one of two methods.
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Create discovery Inclusion Profiles, and optionally, Exclusion Profiles, to discover a list of devices using different inclusion profile types.
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Use the Manual Discovery UI to specify a list of devices to discover.
Creating Discovery Inclusion Profiles
Inclusion Profiles is a standard configuration interface to maintain the various profiles used by the Device Auto Discovery scheduled job to provide criteria for the devices that should be discovered and added to the device catalog. A profile can specify a seed list of IPs and/or DNS Names, a range of IPs, a CDP scan, or an LDAP scan. One or more profiles can be created to discover the devices within a network. Configure a profile and enable it to allow the Device Auto Discovery scheduled job to find the devices using the profile settings. There are four profile types to choose from:
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Ping Scan: Defines an IP address range (for example, 192.0.2.*) to be pinged by the Device Auto Discovery scheduled job.
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Seed Scan: Defines a list of specific IP addresses (and/or DNS names) of devices to be discovered (reduced search time over Ping Scan).
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LDAP Scan: Active Directory query-based scan.
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CDP Scan: A scan based on the Cisco Discovery Protocol (Scans for devices and their directly connected neighbors).
Steps to create a profile:
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Go to the Inclusion Profiles UI.
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Click Add -> Ping Inclusion Profile to create a new profile, then fill in the following information:
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Change the name to something appropriate for the environment.
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Set Device Zone to the zone the devices should be added to.
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Enter the IP address range to scan into the IP Address Regex Range text field. For example, 192.0.2.*.
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Set CIDR to the correct type based on the IP range entered.
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Click Submit to save the profile.
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Add additional inclusion profiles as needed.
After inclusion profiles have been created, unless exclusion profiles are also needed, the Device Auto Discovery job for the zone should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
After discovery has completed, go to the Devices UI to see the devices that have been discovered.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Devices
You can also go to the Devices navigation to see the devices listed.
Creating Discovery Exclusion Profiles
Exclusion Profiles is a standard configuration interface to allow users to define a list or range of IP addresses or DNS Names for which discovery should never be attempted. These allow a small number of IPs to be exempted from discovery, even if they would have been included in a larger range of a discovery profile. For example, an inclusion discovery profile is created for 192.0.2.*, but 192.0.2.129 should never be discovered. An exclusion profile accomplishes this without splitting the single discovery profile into multiple profiles.
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Go to the Exclusion Profiles UI.
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Click the Add -> IP Range Exclusion Profile to create a new profile, then fill in the following information:
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Change the name to something appropriate for the environment.
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Set Device Zone to the zone where the devices should be ignored.
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Enter the IP address range to ignore into the IP Address Regex Range text field (for example 192.0.2.129).
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Click Submit to save the profile.
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Add additional exclusion profiles as needed.
After exclusion profiles have been created, the Device Auto Discovery job for the zone should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
After discovery has completed, go to the Devices UI to see the devices that have been discovered.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Devices
You can also go to the Devices navigation to see the devices listed.
Using Manual Discovery
Manual Discovery is a special configuration interface for the middle ground between full auto-discovery with profiles and manually entering all the device details. It is logically equivalent to creating a new discovery profile, populating it with a single IP, and running the Device Auto Discovery job on just that profile. Users can simply enter an IP address or DNS name and Unified Assurance will run the Device Auto Discovery application on the server specified using a SOAP request. If the device is ping-able, it will be discovered, added to the device catalog, and have its basic device information populated. Manual Discovery will place the device in the device zone, group, shard, etc., set for the Device Auto Discovery application that is used (Default First Zone by default).
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Go to the Manual Discovery UI.
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Select the Unified Assurance server that you intend to use to run discovery from the Run on Server combo box.
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For a single-server install, there should be only one server available.
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In a multi-server install, there may be more than one server to choose from.
Note:
Only servers that have an instance of the DeviceAutoDiscovery binary with the Status set to Enabled will be listed here, but the Scheduled option for the job can be unchecked so that it does not start automatically. If no jobs are enabled, an error will be returned. See the Jobs UI for additional information.
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Select the specific job instance that you intend to use to run discovery from the Discovery Jobs combo box.
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In the Devices (DNS/IPs) field, enter the DNS name or IP address of the device to discover (for example,
192.0.2.22).Note:
You can manually discover multiple devices at once, by comma-separating the IPs/DNS names (for example,
192.0.2.2,198.51.100.3,203.0.113.4). -
Click Discover at the bottom right of the UI. The device discovery process will begin.
After discovery has completed, go to the Devices UI to see the devices that have been discovered.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Devices
You can also go to the Devices navigation to see the devices listed.
Preparing the Device SNMP Discovery job
The Device SNMP Discovery application utilizes SNMP and SNMP Access Profiles to obtain additional information about devices marked as Verified in the device catalog. The application will also periodically re-test SNMP Access Profiles for devices that had been previously discovered. Unified Assurance uses this information to apply a device type to the device in the device catalog. Rules files can also be utilized with this application to further customize the device catalog record for the device based upon the returned data. If discovery was successfully completed via this application, the device State appears as Discovered in the device catalog.
A job should be created to SNMP discover the devices in the new zone.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Device SNMP Discovery job, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Device SNMP Discovery - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Check the Scheduled checkbox, then make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every Saturday at 23:59.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/DeviceSNMPDiscovery-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Optional: In the Configuration section, change the Threads to a larger value. More threads means more system memory will be used, but discovery will complete faster overall.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the job.
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Creating SNMP Access Profiles
SNMP Access is a standard configuration interface for adding, editing, and removing SNMP Discovery access profiles. Each profile contains SNMP information used to access SNMP on devices. The Device SNMP Discovery scheduled job attempts to assign one of these profiles to each device. Once an SNMP access profile has been assigned to a device it can be used by other SNMP-based components.
Unified Assurance provides a Default Public version 2 SNMP Access profile by default, which uses the public community string. If your SNMP-enabled devices also use the public community string and SNMPv2, then the Default Public profile can be used for SNMP Discovery. If your devices use a different SNMP version and/or different community strings, then a new SNMP Access profile must be created with the relevant information.
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Go to the SNMP Access UI.
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Click Add to add a new profile, then fill in the following information:
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Set SNMP Version to the correct version that will be used.
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Set Profile Name to something appropriate for the environment.
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Set Priority Order to an appropriate value for the environment.
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Change the SNMP UDP Port value if needed for the environment.
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Change the MTU value if needed for the environment.
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Set Device Zone to the zone where the profile should be used, or select [All] if the profile should be used in multiple device zones.
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Set the SNMP access with the appropriate settings for the environment.
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If using the v1 or v2c SNMP version, enter the SNMP community string to be used for access.
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If using the 3 SNMP version, enter the different settings needed to be used for access.
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Click Submit to save the profile.
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Add additional access profiles as needed.
After SNMP access profiles have been created, the Device SNMP Discovery job for the zone should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
After discovery has completed, go to the Devices UI to see the devices that have been SNMP discovered.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Devices
You can also go to the Devices navigation to see the devices discovered.
Creating a Metric SNMP Network Interface Discovery Job
The Metric SNMP Network Interface Discovery Agent is used to connect to devices and find the interfaces available for polling. Using rules, metric instances are created, which will be used for future polling.
A job should be created to discover the network interfaces from devices in the new zone.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Metric SNMP Network Interface Discovery job, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Metric SNMP Network Interface Discovery - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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The Scheduled checkbox is already checked, but make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every Sunday at 00:59.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/MetricSNMPInterfaceDiscovery-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Optional: In the Configuration section, change the Threads to a larger value. More threads means more system memory will be used, but discovery will complete faster overall.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the job.
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After the job has been created, the job for the zone should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
Creating a Topology Gather Network Inventory Job
The Topology Gather Network Inventory application gathers information about the network from devices in the device catalog using SNMP and enters it into inventory tables. This information is also used to create topology layout in the graph database. Here are types of information that will be discovered by default:
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ARP entries
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Bridge ports
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CDP neighbors
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Cisco VLANs
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Interfaces
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IP addresses
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LLDP neighbors
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MAC addresses
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Ports
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Routes
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Trunks
A job should be created to gather data from the devices in the new zone.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Topology Gather Network Inventory job, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Topology Gather Network Inventory - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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The Scheduled checkbox is already checked, but make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every day at 11:00.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/MetricSNMPInterfaceDiscovery-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Optional: In the Configuration section, change the Threads to a larger value. More threads means more system memory will be used, but discovery will complete faster overall.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the job.
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After the job has been created, the job for the zone should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
Creating Polling Policies
Polling Policies is a standard configuration interface for adding, editing and removing the polling policies that can be used by the Metric Poller Discovery scheduled job. The scheduled job uses polling policy settings to search for devices and instances to process, create the metrics entries to poll the devices based on selected poller templates, and then assigns thresholds based on the selected threshold group. Essentially, this is a simple, automated and dynamic way to create and maintain Metrics and Threshold settings for certain devices and instances rather than manually creating them using the Polling Assignments interface.
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Go to the Polling Policies UI:
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This step will create a profile for ping polling. Click Add to add a new policy, and in the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Configure Ping Polling.
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Change the Match -> Instance -> Match option and set it to REGEXP.
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For the Match -> Instance -> Name option, enter ^Device$.
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Change the Match -> Instance -> Type option and set it to Unknown.
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Change the Assign -> Method option and set it to NA.
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Change the Assign -> Poller Template option and set it to Default Ping.
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Change the Assign -> Threshold Group option and set it to Default Ping.
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Change the Assign -> Poll Time option and set it to 300.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the policy.
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This step will create a profile for network interface polling. Click Add to add a new policy, and in the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Configure Network Interface Polling - ((INTERFACE NAME)).
Note:
The value used here will greatly depend on the environment, and how interfaces are named is highly configurable. One example is eth0, so the policy name should be Configure Network Interface Polling - eth0
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Change the Match -> Instance -> Match option and set it to LIKE.
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For the Match -> Instance -> Name option, enter the name of the interfaces to be processed, for example, eth0.
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Change the Match -> Instance -> Type option and set it to SNMP Interface.
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Change the Assign -> Method option and set it to SNMP.
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Change the Assign -> Poller Template option and set it to Default Network Interface.
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Change the Assign -> Threshold Group option and set it to Default Network Interface.
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Change the Assign -> Poll Time option and set it to 300.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the policy.
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Additional policies may be needed for additional network interfaces. The existing policy can be cloned, but with a different Match -> Instance -> Name values for the different names that are possible.
Running the Metric Poller Discovery Job
The Metric Poller Discovery application uses the configured Polling Policies to create metrics that will be polled from a device and associate thresholds. This is accomplished by using instance information already gathered by other applications and put into the Unified Assurance database.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Metric Poller Discovery job.
After the job has been selected, it should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
Creating and Running Pollers
Now that all the configuration steps have been completed, it is time to start the following pollers:
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Metric Generic SNMP Poller
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Metric Network Interface Poller
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Metric Ping Latency Poller
Steps:
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Go to the Services UI:
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Select the Metric Generic SNMP Poller service, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Metric Generic SNMP Poller - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/MetricGenericSNMPPoller-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the service.
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Select the Metric Network Interface Poller service, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Metric Network Interface Poller - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/MetricNetworkInterfacePoller-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the service.
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Select the Metric Ping Latency Poller service, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Metric Ping Latency Poller - ((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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In the Configuration section, change the DeviceZoneID to the newly created device zone.
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In the Configuration section, change the LogFile to logs/MetricPingPoller-((DEVICE ZONE NAME)).log.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the service.
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After the pollers are configured, they will be automatically started and polling for data.
Enabling the Metric Standard Thresholding Engine Service
Now that all the pollers have been configured, it is time to start the Metric Standard Thresholding Engine.
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Go to the Services UI:
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Select the Metric Standard Thresholding Engine service.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Optional: If using event or metric sharding, click Clone instead of changing the default service, then change Name to something more descriptive, for example, Metric Standard Thresholding Engine - Event Shard ((#)) Metric Shard ((#)).
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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Optional: If using event sharding and the events should be stored on a different shard, in the Configuration section, add the EventShardID option, and change it to the correct value.
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Optional: If using metric sharding and the metrics should be retrieved from a different shard, in the Configuration section, add the MetricShardID option, and change it to the correct value.
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Click Submit to save the changes or create the service.
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Configuring the Device Configuration Profile
Profiles is a standard configuration interface for managing topology device configuration profiles.
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Go to the Profiles UI:
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Select the Default Server SSH Profile, then click Clone.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Server SSH Profile - ((USER NAME)).
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Change the User to the user name that will be used when connecting to devices.
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Change the Password to the password that will be used when connecting to devices.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the profile.
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Create additional profiles as needed.
Configuring the Device Configuration Policy
Policies is a standard configuration interface for managing device configuration policies. These policies are used by the Topology Configuration Discovery application to create the collections needed for the Gather Configurations Agent application.
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Go to the Policies UI:
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Click Add.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Name to Device Configuration Policy for ((DEVICE TYPE)).
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Change the Device Type to [Any].
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Change the Category to Server.
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Change the Meta Type to [None].
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Change the Profile to the one created in the previous section.
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Change the Action to the Default Servers SSH Actions.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to create the policy.
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Create additional Policies as needed.
Enabling the Config Discovery Job
The Topology Configuration Discovery uses configuration Policies to identify devices where configuration files should be collected, then creates entries as needed for the Gather Configurations Agent application. This is an automated utility that can be utilized to perform the same function as manually creating entries using the Collections UI.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Config Discovery job.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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The Scheduled checkbox is already checked, but make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every hour at minute 59.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to save the changes.
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After the job has been selected, it should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
Enabling and Running the Config Gatherer Job
The Topology Gather Configurations Agent is used to gather configuration information from devices and saves the output as files. These configuration information files are then tracked in the SVN repository and differences can be viewed in the Config DDO of a device in the Topology tab. Gathering configurations can be done via SSH or Telnet.
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Go to the Jobs UI:
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Select the Config Gatherer job.
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In the form that is opened, change the following.
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Change the Status to Enabled.
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The Scheduled checkbox is already checked, but make any changes as needed to the schedule. The default schedule is to run every noon and midnight.
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Other changes can be made as needed in the environment.
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Click Submit to save the changes.
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After the job has been selected, it should be run manually, or if applicable, wait for the job to run as scheduled.
Related Interfaces
Device Management
Device Management is a special configuration interface to perform a single action on a large number of devices at a single time. These actions can be done on a device group, or devices can be manually selected.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Device Management
You can make the following changes to multiple devices at once using this interface:
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Load Device Meta Tags
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Set Device Category
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Set Device Priority
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Move Device to Zone
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Set Device Shard
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Mark Device For SNMP Rediscovery
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Unmanage Device
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Force Device Delete
Device Type Categories
Device Type Categories is a standard configuration interface for adding, editing, and removing device type categories from Unified Assurance. A device type category is used when creating device types, and will be assigned to a device during SNMP discovery or by setting a static category on a device. When viewing the device list, the image assigned to the category will be displayed.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Device Type Categories
Device Types
Device Types is a standard configuration interface for adding, editing, and removing the different device types that can be associated with discovered devices. Some example device types include firewalls, switches, and routers.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Device Types
It is best practice to routinely verify that all devices discovered in Unified Assurance have a valid device type. This will help in device categorization and maintenance.
Maintenance Windows
Maintenance Windows is a standard configuration interface to configure device-based maintenance windows. Specifying maintenance windows allows for special rules processing for events during the window, but this functionality needs to be enabled in the rules for the application.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Maintenance Windows
Maintenance Window processing is available but may need to be enabled in the base.load rules files for different applications. See Enabling Maintenance Windows in Event Rules for additional information.
Meta Types
The Meta Types UI is used for adding, editing and removing metatypes. Device metatype tagging is the concept of associating additional device information to a set of devices. The metatypes can be associated manually or dynamically with rules. Tagging devices with metatypes also provides for device-based enrichment such as Event correlation, as well as special polling of devices.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Meta Types
Unified Assurance uses device-based meta tags in several ways including the following:
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Event Navigation: Making operators view basket-of-technology or application-based dynamic event lists.
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Event Enrichment: Utilizing the device-based data to enrich events on the fly.
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Automatic Configuration: Allowing Unified Assurance components to automatically configure themselves based upon metadata.
Note:
Meta Tags can be added using either the Manage Devices (single device at a time) or Device Management (multiple devices at a time) interfaces.
Vendors
The Vendors interface is used for adding, editing and removing Vendors/Manufacturers from the Unified Assurance system. Vendors can be used for grouping device types.
Configuration -> Device Catalog -> Vendors