About discovery hook scripts

In addition to the steps that are performed automatically during the Network Protocol Manager discovery process, you can use discovery hook scripts to specify additional steps to occur during the postprocessing phase of the discovery.

Network Protocol Manager provides two types of postprocessing discovery hook scripts. One type is written in the VMware Smart Assurance proprietary Adapter Scripting Language (ASL), and the other type is written in the open source Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl).

ASL discovery hook scripts can be used to modify the behavior of SNMP or CLI discovery, and Perl discovery hook scripts can be used to modify the behavior of CLI discovery only.

As an example, and because Network Protocol Manager does not automatically unmanage topology objects during discovery, you can use an ASL script to direct Network Protocol Manager to unmanage certain topology objects during the discovery. If you need to apply complicated logic to determine whether an topology object should be unmanaged, then writing an ASL script might be useful.

As another example, and because Network Protocol Manager does not automatically create device (system) redundancy groups during discovery, you can use an ASL script to direct Network Protocol Manager to create device redundancy groups during the discovery.