During per-device discovery, the IP Manager sends ICMP and SNMP polls to the network devices to discover the network topology. The IP Manager uses object classes to create a data-model representation of the discovered topology. The data model includes representations of the managed network devices and their internal components.

During postprocessing, the IP Manager uses object classes to create representations of the physical and logical connections between the managed network devices. The IP Manager also establishes device relationships.

The data model that is supported by the IP Manager is described in the IP Manager Reference Guide

Note:

Throughout this chapter and the chapters that follow, the terms “system” and “device” are used interchangeably. Usually, “system” is used.

The configurations and licenses that are applied to an IP Manager at startup determine which discovery and analysis will run. By default, discovery and analysis for both IP Availability Manager and IP Performance Manager will run.

“Components of a typical IP Manager deployment” on page 36 identifies the elements of a typical IP Manager deployment and shows the flow of information among the elements.

The IP Manager discovers Layer 2 (data link) and Layer 3 (network) connectivity in multivendor, switched, and routed networks. Layer 2 network systems use machine addresses to transmit packets from network node to network node, and Layer 3 network systems use network addresses to route data to different LANs and WANs. The IP Manager discovers the network systems by sending them ICMP and SNMP polls.

In addition, depending on the configuration, IP Availability Manager also sends network topology to the Service Assurance Manager Adapter Platform (Adapter Platform) and to satellite Domain Managers.

Running separate instances of IP Availability Manager and IP Performance Manager is necessary if the two applications are running on different hosts. When running on the same host, a more common configuration would be IP Availability Manager and IP Performance Manager running as a single process.

After building a data model of the discovered network topology, IP Availability Manager, IP Performance Manager, and IP Server Performance Manager use SNMP polling to monitor the topology. The results of this polling, in conjunction with the received SNMP traps, are used by:

  • IP Availability Manager to diagnose the failed network objects that interrupt network connectivity.

  • IP Performance Manager and IP Server Performance Manager to diagnose emerging problems in the service delivery infrastructure.

    IP Availability Manager, IP Performance Manager, and IP Server Performance Manager export their topology data and analysis results (events) to the Service Assurance Manager (Global Manager).

    Whenever discovery completes, the IP Manager prints a report to its log file identifying the number of network objects that are created during the discovery. Naming of the log depends on the locale and encoding set by the user and is controlled by the SM_LOCALE and SM_ENCODING environment variables. The log file is named <IP Manager instance name>_<locale>_<character encoding>.log (for example, INCHARGE-AM_en_US_UTF-8.log) and is located in the BASEDIR/smarts/local/logs directory in the IP Manager installation area.