Network Discovery

Network Discovery is the process of discovering all Monitors in a specified network. It discovers monitors running in the default port only.

Prerequisites: Provided credentials should have the admin/root privileges.

To discover all the monitors in a network:

  1. Go to New Monitor and click on Discover Monitors.
  2. This opens the Add New Discovery page. Alternatively, this can also be done by navigating to Settings → Add/Discover → Discovery.
  3. Enter the display name for the discovery to be created.
  4. Select the required credentials from the Credential List either from the existing credential details using Credential Manager or by adding new credentials.
  5. Select the Type with which the network IP Address should be entered for discovery.
    • IP Address Range - Enter the From and To IP Address range within which the discovery should be performed. You can also provide multiple IP Address ranges (up to 10) for discovery by clicking the [+] button.
    • CIDR - Enter the network address under which the discovery should be performed. You can use an IPv4 or IPv6 Address to add your network.
    • VMWare - Allows you to discover the VMWare hosts from the vCenter infrastructure. Enter details such as hostname/IP address, Port, username, password and TLS Version of the vCenter. Also, you can choose to create a Virtual Infrastructure View of all the hosts and VMs associated to the vCenter infrastructure.
  6. Enter the SubNetMask of the network.
  7. Configure the port details for the services to be scanned during the discovery. You can either go with these default values or edit the ports. You can also specify multiple ports for each application separated by comma.
  8. After performing the above steps, click on one of the following buttons:
    • Discover: Discovers all the possible monitors available within the mentioned network. Clicking this button will display the list of all the possible resources discovered within the network, from which required monitors can be selected and added using the Add Selected Devices button.
    • Discover & Add: Discovers all the monitors available within the network and add them.

Network Discovery

The Network Discovery section is displayed once the discovery process is completed. Here you can view the list of various devices (servers & applications) that have been discovered in Applications Manager. Also, there is an option to View Application Dependency Maps. In View Application Dependency Map page, you can create a monitor group among the applications discovered through the ADDM by enabling the 'Use Application Dependency Mapping (ADM)' option. If disabled, you can create a monitor group by associating monitors manually to it.

You can perform various operations to the required discovery profiles by selecting appropriate options given below from the Network Discovery table:

  • View Discovered Details: Displays the list of all the servers and applications that were discovered from the network. Here, you can select the required monitors and add them using the Add Selected Devices option.
  • Edit: Allows you to edit/modify the details entered in the discovery profile.
  • View Report Page: Displays the list of servers and associated applications that were discovered and added in the discovery profile. Also, there is a 'Debug' link available in the right-hand corner that shows the list of IP addresses for which credentials have not passed during discovery along with its error message.
  • Delete: Allows you to delete the required discovery profile. You can delete the discovery profile by choosing either of the below two options:
    • Delete discovery profile alone: Deletes only the discovery profile and excludes the monitors associated with it.
    • Delete monitors from this discovery: Allows you to delete the selected monitors associated with the discovery profile. Here you can select the required monitors that need to be deleted and clicking on the Delete button will delete the monitors. Also, there is an option to delete the discovery profile, enabling which will delete the discovery profile. You can also delete the vCenter Infrastructure associated with the profile, enabling which will delete the vCenter Infrastructure along with the ESXi hosts associated with it.
  • Schedule discovery: Allows you to schedule discovery in Daily, Weekly, or Monthly basis.
  • Rediscover: While selecting 'Rediscover Now' icon, discovery will get started using the configured details in the profile.

Dependency Map

Besides the Network Discovery table, you can view Dependency Maps created with the discovered resources under the Dependency Map table. This table shows the list of various dependency maps created along with the number of servers and applications added to this map view. On clicking the map name, you can find a visual map view of all the servers and their associated applications that are available and connected to each other. There are two types of dependency maps that can be viewed:

  • Graph View: Show a visual representation of all the servers and their associated applications connected in the form of graphs.
  • Tree View: Shows a visual representation of all the applications connected in the form of flowchart. You can obtain this view by disabling the Enable ADDM Dependency View option under Settings → Global Settings.

Also, you can create a new map view by clicking over the Add New link.

Global Settings options for ADDM

Following are the list of options that can be found in Global Settings page:

  • Show servers in Application Dependency Mapping - By selecting this option, servers will be included in application dependency map view.
  • Discover unknown devices during ADDM discovery - Enabling this option will result in Applications Manager adding servers and applications for which credentials have not passed.
  • Restart failed discoveries on startup - Enabling this option will restart failed discoveries during startup.
  • Enable ADDM dependency view - On enabling this option, the Create Business view option in the Discovery reports page directs to create new dependency map option. On disabiling it, it redirects to Business view option.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Question 1: How does "Network Discovery" function work? How to discover the network? Eg.Through what mode?

Initially, Applications Manager gets all the Ip addresses in the given domain and then Applications Manager discovers them by using ping test. If the ping test succeeds and if SNMP agent is running on that machine, Applications Manager will try to add it to the appropriate category ( i.e., windows / linux / solaris ) and collect data, otherwise Applications Manager will add that server to unknown category.

Question 2: If I add a new "Network Discovery", does it only discover once or discover at regular intervals? Because there are only "Add New" and "Disable Network Discovery" buttons, I don't know when it will start to discover and when it will complete discovery.

When you add Network Discovery, it will rediscover the network every time you restart Applications Manager and also it will do rediscovery once in every 24 hours. Once you start network discovery, it will start discovering the servers in the network. It will wait for 20 seconds interval between discovering servers.

Question 3: I find "Network Discovery" can find a small part of the monitors in the network only, there are lots of monitors that can't be found.

In the professional trial version of Applications Manager, only 50 servers are discovered using Network Discovery.

Question 4: I don't want to monitor a certain monitor, I delete it manually; but I don't disable network discovery, will it be discovered and monitored again?

Yes, it will discover that monitor again in the next rediscovery which takes place after 24 hours.

Services - Using this option, you can choose which of the services needs to monitored by default.

The services are listed down along with their default ports. For eg., if you had already added a Windows Server monitor, by using this option, you can choose the services (that are running in that windows server) to be monitored. You choose to monitor all the tomcats & IIS servers that are running in the windows server. Data Collection does not happen for services that are not enabled, thereby increasing the efficiency of monitoring in general.

By using the edit option, you can edit the port number. If there are multiple ports, enter the ports as comma separated.