Manual topology mapping
After years of suffering with the horrific (and broken) topology mapping, how about just giving us the ability to create our own dependencies/maps, similar to The Dude or MangeEngine's OpManager?
Forum Discussion
21 Replies
I’d be happy if topology mapping would just utilize LLDP/CDP as a starting point. It’d be better & more accurate than what’s currently happening.
Stuart_WeenigMastermind
I’d be happy if topology mapping would just utilize LLDP/CDP as a starting point. It’d be better & more accurate than what’s currently happening.
Wait, it’s not already doing that? Well, I guess I’m going to be looking into 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.23.1.2.1.1 & 1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.1.6.1 next.
I’d be happy if topology mapping would just utilize LLDP/CDP as a starting point. It’d be better & more accurate than what’s currently happening.
Wait, it’s not already doing that? Well, I guess I’m going to be looking into 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.23.1.2.1.1 & 1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.1.6.1 next.
Doesn’t seem to be, I routinely see switches that are 2+ hops down the chain shown directly attached to upstream distribution routers. Also routinely see switches shown attached to other switches in entirely different distribution segments.
Pretty sure 99% of the topology mapping problems would be resolved if LLDP/CDP were used as the primary source of truth on how devices are interconnected, then routing relationships and other methods used to add further context.
Bumping this again as, once more, the latest 1.87 UI Update has actually managed to worsen the situation.
Unsure if
@Stuart Weenig ,@Michael Rodrigues or@A11ey had any movement in the right direction on this?- A11ey
Community Manager
@Jordan-Eil , I have escalated this internally. I’ll follow up and LYK.@Stuart Weenig , agree, still working on this ;)@A11ey , it might be helpful for the community to know which PM is over which parts of the product so they can tag the right PM when asking particular posts that need PM attention. 
neilticktinNeophyte
Stuart_WeenigmichaeldA11eyAny update on this? We've got a problem where we want to have Ruckus Unleashed APs show up in the Topology Maps, but because Unleashed is not supported with LM data, property or topology source modules, it's more challenging. It's not difficult to identify the MAC addresses from the Unleashed "Master" for all the APs -- we can see them in a snmpwalk.
Even if there was simply a way to import a CSV of whatever data, and have it impact the topology map, that would be an ok work around, but you can touch the necessary properties to have them show up on the map, unfortunately.
Maybe we're going about this the wrong way, but we're finding it's non-trivial to create a new module set to support Unleashed. We're just looking for these APs to attach themselves to the write parent switch in topology. For the APs, just that and a ping if they are alive is all we care about.
- Stuart_Weenig
Ok, maybe this is a slightly different topic then.
I don't know about Rukus. But...
Topology relies on two things: 1) ERIs and 2) TopologySources or manual mapping.
ERIs are simply all the names by which a device may be identified by other devices on the network. So, all the MAC addresses on a device would be ERIs. If you add the Rukus devices into LM and enable SNMP, it's likely the built in ERI source(s) would pick up the MAC addresses and add them as ERIs on the devices. ERIs can be defined on the device level or the instance level so that a device can be connected to an instance which is connected to another instance which is connected to another device.
Then you can either automatically connect them or manually connect them.
To automatically connect them, you need to query a device that knows about the relationship between the two devices and uses at least one of the ERIs of both devices to declare the relationship. For example, you could query CDP to find out the neighbors of the device. The response would say A, B, and C, are connected to me (D). But instead of using A, B, C, and D, it would identify A, B, C, and D by their ERI.
Manual mapping is also possible, but more, well, manual.
When I was at LM, I made some learning bytes that explain how this all works. It's a series of videos (not very well tied together in the support portal). Go to your LM >> Training >> Learning Bytes and look for: 1) Fetching Instances through Active Discovery, 2) Scripted Active Discovery Syntax, 3) Manual Topology Mapping
