eG Administration
 

MANAGER DISCOVERY - GENERAL SETTINGS

This test monitors configured VC tasks and reports their current status. By default, the test monitors a pre-defined set of tasks belonging to pre-configured event categories. You can override this default setting by including/excluding specific tasks from an event category. To achieve this, do the following:

To configure the GENERAL SETTINGS for the discovery process using the eG manager, do the following:

  • To start the discovery process, you must specify the IP address range(s) that characterize the target environment in the GENERAL SETTINGS page. You can provide the IP range for discovery in one of the following ways:

    • You can manually specify the IP range for discovery;

    • You can instruct the eG manager to automatically discover the IP range from the target environment;

    • If your eG manager integrates with an Active Directory server, then, you can discover the range of IP addresses available in a particular subnet of a chosen domain;

    To manually specify the IP range, do the following:

    • Set the Select IP range for discovery using Active Directory flag to No.

    • Provide an IP address manually in the IP range text area. While many environments have a single IP address range, some environments may involve components at different locations, with each location using a different IP address range. To support these different types of environments, the eG administrative interface permits the administrator to enter one or more IP address ranges that characterize the target environment, one below the other.

      Note

      Both IPv4 and IPv6 ranges are supported. However, a single IP range can include either IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses only, and not a combination of both.

      To make sure that the eG manager auto-discovers the IP range available in the target environment, do the following:

    • Set the Select IP range for discovery using Active Directory flag to No.

    • Click the Fetch IP range for this environment icon next to the IP range text area. In case if you want to clear the IP range, then click the Clear the IP range icon next to the IP range text area.

    • This will automatically populate the IP range text area with the range of IP addresses available in the target environment.

    If you want to fetch the IP range from the AD server with which the eG manager integrates, do the following:

    • Set the Select IP range for discovery using Active Directory flag to Yes.

    • Pick a domain from the Active Directory Domain list.

    • The sites in the chosen domain will then be available for selection. Select an Active Directory Site from the Select an Active Directory Site list.

    • Next, pick one/more subnets from the Select SubNet(s) From Site list.

    • This will automatically populate the IP range text area with the range of IP addresses in the chosen subnets.

  • Next, from the Type of Network list box, choose the type of network being discovered. The default choice is a Local Area Network (LAN), wherein network delays are of the order of a few tens of milliseconds. To support networks that span multiple geographic locations, an administrator can change the network type to a Wide Area Network (WAN) in which case, the network delays are of the order of seconds.

  • By default, the eG manager attempts to use the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to figure out which hosts are available in the target environment. Once the hosts that are available are detected, the manager uses a simple port scanning technique to discover the components running on these hosts. For security reasons, some environments may not allow ICMP traffic through their networks. To inform the eG manager of such a restriction, set the flag ICMP enabled to Yes. If this flag is set to No, the eG manager directly uses the port scanning technique for each of the hosts in the specified IP address ranges.

  • The Re-discovery period determines the frequency with which the discovery process executes. This frequency governs how quickly the eG manager is able to discover components that may have been newly added to the target environment. By default, it is 1 hour.

  • Then, proceed to indicate how network devices are to be discovered by the eG manager. Typically, SNMP is used to discover network devices. The version of SNMP used by network devices in the target environment should first be selected from the SNMP version list and by default, it is v1. The SNMP community strings using which the network device discovery is to be performed should then be provided as a comma-separated list in the SNMP community strings text box. This specification can be cleared at any point in time by clicking the Clear the community string icon (i.e., the ‘eraser’ icon) next to the SNMP community strings text box.

  • By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic - for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components - to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG manager to conduct the discovery-related data traffic over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set the Use SNMP over TCP flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

  • By default, components that are deleted will not be discovered again. Accordingly, the Re-discover deleted components flag is set to No by default. If you want eG Enterprise to re-discover deleted components, then set this flag to Yes.

  • Click the Update button to register the changes.

  • Once the settings are updated, the discovery process will start and control will automatically switch to the Start sub-node under the Actions node. This indicates that discovery has begun. You can track the progress of the discovery and can also identify the types of components that have been discovered using the COMPONENTS - MANAGE/UNMANAGE page that appears in the right panel when the Start node is selected.

    The Component type list in the COMPONENTS - MANAGE/UNMANAGE page lists the types of applications/devices that the discovery process has discovered.

  • You can stop the discovery process any time after it is started by clicking the Stop sub-node under the Actions node.