Rule structure

There are two sets of rules, both with the same syntactic structure. One set of rules is for devices flowing from Network Configuration Manager to Smarts Manager, and another set of rules is for devices flowing from Smarts Manager to Network Configuration Manager.

The basic rule structure is to define an origin, a filter, and a destination. Origins and destinations are either IP Availability Managers in Smarts Manager, or Networks in Network Configuration Manager. Filters are additional criteria that can be applied.

For an example, assume there are two Network Configuration Manager Networks, NetworkA and NetworkB, and two Smarts Manager IP Availability Managers, InCharge-AM1 and InCharge-AM2. A rule might state that devices coming from NetworkB (origin) with an IP address in the range 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.255 will go to the IP Availability Manager InCharge-AM1 (destination). Syntactically, this would be expressed as follows:

NetworkB   IP   192.168.1.1-192.168.1.255   InCharge-AM1

Mapping rules are a list of these rules that function much like an access control list (ACL). Rules are executed in sequence until a match is found. The matched rule is then “fired” to control the flow of devices. In the following rule set, a device from NetworkA will end up in InCharge-AM2. Notice that regular expressions can be used in the origin. They cannot be used in the destination for obvious reasons:

NetworkB IP 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.255 InCharge-AM1

Netw.*  None      InCharge-AM2

The rules execute for each device flowing through the mapping component. In the example above, the first rule does not apply because the origin of the device is NetworkA. The second rule applies because NetworkA matches the regular expression for the origin, and no additional filtering is performed. The device will go onto the pending list of the IP Availability Manager InCharge-AM2.

In the case where no rules match for a device, the destination is determined by the defaults that were set up in the synchronization options. Imagine a default rule at the end of every rule set using the defaults from the synchronization options.

The following table shows some examples of mapping rules for devices flowing from Network Configuration Manager to Smarts Manager. Notice the use of regular expressions. If you are not skilled at using regular expressions, their construction can be counter-intuitive at first. Notice the “.*” syntax for specifying any match or any sequence of characters following an exact match.

Origin (network name)	Filter type	Filter value	Destination (AM name)
Example 1
.*	IP	192.168.1.1-192.168.1.255	InCharge-AM-PM
.*	IP	10.1.1.1-11.1.1.1	InCharge-AM
Example 2
Cust1	None		InCharge-AM
Cust2	None		InCharge-AM-PM
Example 3
Cust.*	Name	abc.*23	InCharge-AM
Cust.*	Name	bbc.*23	InCharge-AM-PM
MSP.*	None		InCharge-MSP-IP-AM

Note:

Device type is only valid from Smarts Manager to Network Configuration Manager.