Using Connection Profiles with Network Discovery

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

How do I use connection profiles with Network Discovery?

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Resolution

Network Discovery tasks use connection profiles to configure the protocols that are used to communicate with network devices. How you use protocols and connection profiles has important ramifications on how Network Discovery is able to discover devices. You can create and use different connection profiles depending on the type of devices and protocols used in your network.

The protocols used in a connection profile influence the following discovery factors:

• How long the discovery takes
• Which devices are discovered

An important concept to understand when using connection profiles is the designation of primary and secondary protocols. Some protocols are faster than others in communicating with devices. Connection profiles designate the faster protocols as primary protocols. Other protocols that are slower are designated as secondary protocols. When a discovery task runs, the primary protocol will be used first to try to establish communication with devices.

For example, ping is a tool that uses the ICMP protocol to communicate with devices. The ICMP protocol can establish communication with devices faster than some other protocols, such as AMT. As a result, if a connection profile has ICMP and AMT selected, it will designate ICMP as the primary protocol, and the slower AMT protocol as the secondary protocol.  

In a scenario where you want to discover AMT devices, if your devices and network allow ICMP, you would want to use both protocols in the profile. This way, the faster primary protocol, ICMP, will establish initial communication, and then the secondary protocol, AMT, will be used to discover only the AMT resources.

The protocols that are considered primary and secondary may depend on the configuration of your devices. If ICMP is used, it would normally be designated a primary protocol. IPMI can also be designated as a primary protocol.

Warning: If a primary protocol, such as ICMP is used in a connection profile, that protocol must also be enabled in your network and on the devices you want to discover. Otherwise, no devices will be discovered. If the primary protocol cannot establish communication with any devices, no secondary protocols will be used. In other words, if you disable a protocol in your network, you must remove it from the connection profile.

For example, using the previous scenario, you want to discover AMT devices. In your connection profile, you have selected both ICMP and AMT. ICMP will be used as the primary protocol. If ICMP is disabled in your network or devices, the primary protocol, ICMP will not be able to establish communication with any devices and the AMT protocol will be ignored. As a result, no devices will be discovered. In this scenario, you would only select the AMT protocol in the connection profile.

The following table lists the default primary protocol for each protocol:

Protocol	Primary protocol
ICMP	ICMP (itself)
WMI	ICMP
SNMP	ICMP
IPMI	IPMI (itself)
CIM-WSMAN	ICMP
NaviCLI (EMC)	ICMP
Symbol	ICMP
AMT	AMT
ASF	ASF