Support and Reconciliation for Concurrent UCF and SNMP Discovery (Fortinet Plugin) in DX NetOps Spectrum

Products

• Network Observability
• Spectrum
• CA Performance Management

Issue/Introduction

Users may have questions regarding the coexistence of Fortinet devices discovered via the Universal Collector Framework (UCF) and traditional SNMP in Spectrum. Common concerns include:

• Whether both discovery methods are supported simultaneously.
• If devices will merge/reconcile automatically.
• What identifiers are used as the key for reconciliation.

Cause

By design, Spectrum maintains separate managers for traditional SNMP and SDN/VNA-managed entities. While reconciliation is supported to provide a unified view, the timing and method of discovery affect how these entities are merged.

Resolution

Coexistence and Visibility

Concurrent discovery via UCF and SNMP is supported. Devices managed via UCF/VNA are typically visible under the SDN Manager in the Spectrum OneClick hierarchy.

Reconciliation Logic

Reconciliation (merging) between the SDN entity and the SNMP entity follows these rules:

• Identifiers: Spectrum primarily uses the Entity UUID and/or IP address to identify and merge identical devices across different discovery sources.
• Manual Action Required: When an SNMP device is discovered after the device has already been established via UCF/SDN, reconciliation will not happen automatically.
• Step to Resolve: In these cases, administrators must manually initiate the reconciliation process to merge the SNMP model with the existing SDN model.

 

 

Additional Information

In newer versions (DX NetOps 25.4.4 and higher), users can utilize the SNMP_CIDRS configuration parameter within the Fortinet plugin settings. This allows you to specify a range of IP addresses for the plugin to use for SNMP monitoring, which helps facilitate better data deduplication between Spectrum and Performance Management.