Working with Discovery

You can use the discovery process to perform network discovery. You can modify the discovery process--for example, to change a network timeout interval.

Discovery Process

CWSI uses a background process called asynchronous network interface (ANI) to perform its discovery. The ANI process uses the following protocols:

• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) Discovery is a link layer discovery protocol that discovers all Cisco devices that communicate at Layer 2--for example, devices in an Ethernet or Token Ring LAN.

• Interim Local Management Interface (ILMI) is an ATM Forum standard discovery mechanism that provides information about discovering devices on an ATM network at the ATM physical connectivity level.

• Private Network-to-Network Interface (PNNI) is also based on the ATM forum standard and provides the information on a logical PNNI-routed network that maps on top of a physical ATM network provided by the ILMI discovery. The PNNI network is organized into peer groups which can be in a PNNI hierarchy in a PNNI domain.

Changing the Discovery Interval

The discovery interval indicates the interval at which CWSI runs the discovery process. The default interval is 30 minutes. You can reduce or increase this interval depending on the size of your network. For a very large network, you might need to increase the interval.

To change the discover interval, follow these steps:

Step 1 From the CWSI network map, select Options>Properties.

The CWSI Properties window opens.

Step 2 In the Properties window, select the Discovery tab.

The Discovery options are displayed.

Step 3 In the Interval field, enter in seconds the new interval.

Step 4 Click OK to set the interval and close the Properties window.

Restarting Discovery

To restart the discovery process before the specified discovery interval:

From the CWSI Map window, select View>Rediscover Map.

The Discovery process runs and updates the current network map.

Changing the Discovery Seed Device

The Discovery seed device is the device from which you start the discovery process. When you installed CWSI, you specified a seed device. The seed device can be any Cisco device in your network that runs CDP. Whenever you run the Discovery process, the same device that you specified as the seed device is used to initiate the discovery process. You can change this seed device using the CWSI - Properties window.

To change the seed device for the next discovery process, follow these steps:

Step 1 In the CWSI - Map window, select Options>Properties.

The CWSI Properties window opens.

Step 2 In the Properties window, select the Discovery tab.

Step 3 In the Seed Device entry field (located next to the Add and Delete buttons), enter the IP address of the new seed device if it is not already in the list of seed devices.

Step 4 Click Add to add the seed device to the list.

Step 5 Select the newly added seed device.

Step 6 Click OK to specify this device as the new seed device.

The selected seed device will be used for the next scheduled discovery. If you want to perform an immediate discovery process, from the CWSI map select View>Rediscover Map.

Adding and Removing VTP Domains

Your network may be divided into VLAN Trunk Protocol (VTP) domains. VTP domains are typically portions of your network that you have defined using the CLI on your switches. You can add or remove VTP domains from the discovery process. For example, if you discovered your entire network when you installed CWSI, you could remove a specific domain from future discoveries.

To remove a VTP domain, follow these steps:

Step 1 In the CWSI Map window, select Options>Properties.

The CWSI - Properties window opens.

Step 2 In the CWSI Properties window, select the Discovery tab.

Step 3 In the Add field, enter the name of the domain to include or exclude. You can specify the domain name or select one from a list of available VTP domains if you have already added them. The VTP domain name must be an existing VTP domain name. Configure VTP domain names with the CLI on your switch.

Step 4 The CWSI Map window will exclude or include the specified domain on its next discovery.

To display an updated map immediately, in the CWSI Map window, select View>Rediscover Map.

Rediscovering a Device

Sometimes it may be necessary to rediscover a device because a condition or attribute about that device has changed since the last discovery.

To rediscover a device, take the following steps:

Step 1 Select the device on the CWSI network map.

Step 2 Select View>Rediscover Map.