After preparing your MPLS Manager deployment for discovery, you initiate an IP Availability Manager discovery for each IP Availability Manager in the deployment. Then, you initiate an MPLS Manager discovery by starting the MPLS Manager component servers.

During startup, the MPLS Topology Server:

  • Registers with the VMware Smart Assurance Broker.

  • Loads its .import (probe) and configuration files, including mpls.conf and mpls-tma.conf.

  • Adds as a topology source each IP Availability Manager that is listed in the mpls.conf file.

  • Creates in its repository an InChargeDomain object (INCHARGE-AM, for example) for each IP Availability Manager instance that is added as a topology source.

  • Establishes a connection to each IP Availability Manager source and probes each source for router and switch topology and CLI device-access objects.

  • Imports and stores in its repository the router and switch topology that is discovered by each IP Availability Manager source.

  • Imports and stores in its repository the CLI device-access objects from the IP Availability Manager source that is exporting CLI device-access objects for MPLS Manager operation.

  • Initiates its own discovery by sending SNMP polls and/or CLI commands to the router and switch devices to discover the MPLS, VPN, and (optional) BGP information that is needed to build the MPLS, VPN, and BGP topology.

    Chapter 9, “Understanding Discovery Results,” provides information about discovery errors and their solutions.

    After initial discovery, and assuming that the StopAutoAMSync parameter in the mpls.conf file is FALSE (default), the MPLS Topology Server imports topology from IP Availability Manager whenever IP Availability Manager completes a discovery cycle. “Synchronizing with IP Availability Manager” on page 126 describes how the MPLS Topology Server synchronizes its discovery with the discovery of IP Availability Manager.

    “Synchronizing with the MPLS Topology Server” on page 127 describes how the MPLS Monitoring Server and the MPLS Analysis Server components of MPLS Manager synchronize their topology import with the discovery of the MPLS Topology Server.