The purpose of discovery filters is to control or limit which systems are added to the discovery process during autodiscovery. Appropriate discovery filtering ensures that autodiscovery is efficient.

You use discovery filters to ensure that certain network-accessible systems that are not intended for management by the IP Manager are not discovered. For example, an Internet service provider (ISP) might want to discover a router and its interfaces, but not the systems that are connected to the router on the ISP’s client side. Configuring the appropriate discovery filters will enforce this discovery restriction.

Seed systems in a seed file, or seed systems that are specified by using the Add Agent command, are not subject to the discovery filters. Only the systems that are found by the autodiscovery’s probing of the seed systems are subject to the discovery filters.

The IP Manager User Guide provides information on all the tasks related to the creation of discovery filters.