Codima autoVoIP™ FAQs

Following are some frequently asked questions specifically about autoAsset™ Network Inventory Software. Click each FAQ to view the answer.

autoAsset™ Background Information:

1. What is autoAsset™ used for? What is autoAsset™ used for?

   In simple terms this is an application operating on Microsoft Windows® XP/Server 2003 Platforms, using standard NICs, it has an Integrated Discovery Engine which obtains Asset information by interrogating existing Agents on the network.

   It is used to produce asset inventory reports. It can be standalone system or it can be an add on for the autoMap™.

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2. How does autoAsset™ discover the network? How does autoAsset™ discover the network?

   The Codima Discovery Engine associated with the autoAsset™ starts the discovery from a seed-device, which must be SNMP-capable. The Codima Discovery Engine will inspect the ARP table, Routing and Forwarding Tables for the seed-device to see who is communicating with whom and then start to interrogate those devices. As it finds the next switch or router it starts to see more devices and the discovery process works in a recursive manner until it sees all active devices.

   As ARP tables get flushed after 5 minutes by default, the Discovery Engine can force those tables to be populated by using a controlled ping scan of the network and that way also discover connected devices that have not been recently active. We strongly recommend using a router as the seed-device as this will have the most reliable and extensive ARP table and typically will have most devices on the network in its ARP table.

   The Discovery Engine then goes on to interrogate the devices using SNMP and WMI technology etc.

   A large part of the discovery engine’s functionality is dedicated to discovering the capabilities and inter-connectivity between switches and routers. These are the major infrastructure nodes and are the components used to build the topology of a network. Much of the information needed to discover a network’s topology is stored in proprietary MIBs and we support CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol), CDP (Cabletron Discovery Protocol) and EDP (Extreme Discovery Protocol) to get the requisite information. In fact our knowledge of these vendors (Cabletron is now called Enterasys) and Nortel Networks and the particularities of their extensive product families is one of the key differentiators of the Codima Discovery Engine against our competition.

   The discovery engine used by autoAsset™ and autoMap™ is the same (with some minor version variations only).

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3. How long should autoAsset™ discovery take? How long should autoAsset™ discovery take?
   Anything from 5 minutes to several hours, the duration is subject to the network size, i.e., number and type of devices available, as well as the available bandwidth. The average time to process one IP address is 30 seconds.
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4. What device types are supported by the discovery engine? What device types are supported by the discovery engine?
   Over 3900 devices are supported. The device support is enhanced on an ongoing basis. Following is a link to a file that covers the device type list supported in autoMap™: Supported Device Types
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5. What type of database is used to store discovery results? And can I access it with other applications? What type of database is used to store discovery results? And can I access it with other applications?
   autoAsset™ defaults to use an Microsoft Access® database to store discovery results. Microsoft Access® databases are 100% open, so SQL queries can be run on them. The installation program installs and configures an Microsoft Access® database connector to the autoMap™ database.
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6. How large will the discovery database be? How large will the discovery database be?
   It is not possible to give exact figures, as the size will be subject to amount of information gathered for each device. However as a guide, a thousand device network for example would typically produce a 15Mb file.
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7. What layers of the OSI Model does the autoMap™ address? What layers of the OSI Model does the autoMap™ address?
   The inventory applies to information obtained from Forwarding and Routing tables, so the layers involved are layer 2 (Link) and layer 3 (Network).
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Scope / Applications:

1. What range of asset information is available? What range of asset information is available?
   The autoAsset™ tool can provide access to a wide range of asset information, the information provided is obtained using SNMP and WMI. The SNMP information will be subject to the devices SNMP Support and the devices types currently supported by the Discovery Engine.

   • The Asset display and the HTML Reports provide System and Interface information for devices
   • For Switches and Routers that support the Entity Mib, you can use the HTML report to view information on the physical relationships between components in the Switch/Router.
   • The Asset display and the HTML Reports provide Software and Hot fix listings for devices and for disk, processor, monitor and printer configuration information for devices that support WMI.
   • The Asset display and the HTML Reports provide Window Services and Processes information for devices that support WMI.

   To view the complete range of asset information you should create an HTML Web page report when discovery is complete, as this contains more information than the Asset tree view, for example information on VLANs and the physical structure of switches and routers.

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2. What Operating Systems can we obtain WMI information from? What Operating Systems can we obtain WMI information from?
   Can obtain WMI from:

   • Windows 2000 (SP4 or later)
   • Windows XP
   • Windows 2003

   Cannot obtain WMI from:

   • Windows 95
   • Windows 98
   • Windows NT (pre SP6)

   May be able to obtain WMI from:

   • Windows NT (SP6 or later)

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3. Can autoAsset™ discover non-SNMP devices? Can autoAsset™ discover non-SNMP devices?
   Yes. All autoAsset™ needs to discover and show a device is an IP address. Non-SNMP devices, e.g. Windows workstations, will be found and associated with a switch port or segment. Essentially you will see the IP address, the MAC address, manufacturer (of the network card) and the switch port for non-managed (i.e. non-SNMP) devices. Access to WMI information and NetBIOS information is also be available.
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4. Can autoAsset™ discover IPX, DECnet and Appletalk devices? Can autoAsset™ discover IPX, DECnet and Appletalk devices?
   Yes, if they support IP. Otherwise not, as the discovery process is solely IP-based. Alternatively you can use the autoAnalyzer™ Consultancy Kit, which has a passive discovery mechanism that will show all active stations, regardless of the network architecture used in its Segment Map display. This means deploying an autoAnalyzer™ Consultancy Kit to monitor the switch/segment concerned.
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5. Can I easily identify the unmanaged sectors of the network? Can I easily identify the unmanaged sectors of the network?
   Yes. The autoAsset™ Summary Report will provide a discovery rating and information on the device response, i.e., will show if information is obtained from an SNMP response, a WMI response, a NetBios response or if device is known only because it responded to a Ping or was in an ARP table.
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6. Can I use autoAsset™ to track changes between different discovery runs? Can I use autoAsset™ to track changes between different discovery runs?
   The HTML Reports produced include an "Advanced report" called "Discovery History". This report highlights the devices that have been added and removed since earlier discovery runs.
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7. Can autoAsset™ be used to produce Topology drawings? Can autoAsset™ be used to produce Topology drawings?
   No, however you can use the autoMap™ Network Mapping tool.
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8. Can I use autoAsset™ to identify IP Phones? Can I use autoAsset™ to identify IP Phones?
   To include IP Phones in the autoAsset™inventory, the discovery engine needs to be able to identify them as VoIP phones, it does this using SNMP so the Phones need to:

   • Support SNMP
   • Have SNMP enabled
   • Be included in the Codima Discovery Engine device type list

   
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9. What network security rights must I have to run autoAsset™? What network security rights must I have to run autoAsset™?

   To obtain SNMP information you need to use the correct Read Community string (e.g., Public).

   To obtain WMI information you must run autoAsset™ from a user account with Domain Administrator rights.

   If autoAsset™ states that WMI did not have the correct permission, it means that the workstation you are running autoAsset™ from is not a domain administrator or the workstation you are trying to discover is not logged on to the same domain. Either way windows has not given permission for you to access the WMI RPC services on the remote workstation.

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Codima Discovery Engine Background Information:

1. What SNMP versions are supported by the Codima Discovery Engine? What SNMP versions are supported by the Codima Discovery Engine?
   SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c protocols are supported. The system can also read SMIv1 and SMIv2 MIBs. Note: SNMP agents using SNMPv2c should respond to SNMPv1 requests.
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2. How does the discovery process work? How does the discovery process work?

   The Discovery Engine uses a variety of techniques to discover devices, such as inspection of ARP tables, Routing and Forwarding tables and controlled scanning techniques. This overcomes a limitation of many existing approaches, which need to know what to discover in order to draw a network. Once discovered, devices are queried using SNMP for MIB 2 and current vendor MIBs. WMI is also supported. The autoMap™ has a Device database covering most current and many old generation equipment types.

   The protocols used in the process include SNMP, ICMP, xDP (Cisco, Cabletron and Extreme Discovery Protocols), NetBIOS, and STP, the discovery process is an active function.

   To obtain WMI information autoMap™ must be run from a Domain Administrator account.

   You should enable as many SNMP Agents as possible prior to running the discovery, and consider the firewall configuration on your network and the impact on the discovery process.

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3. How does the discovery process use the device type list? How does the discovery process use the device type list?

   The discovery process used by autoMap™ will involve browsing mib-2 on any devices it finds during its discovery, so if the devices support mib-2 we will take the asset information from there - the System and Interfaces branch of the mib-2 tree for example provide information describing the system and the port connections.

   The device list is used to identify a device. It contains the MIB-2 system group sysObjectId. This is like a vendor’s model number for a device. The discovery engine can identify the device using this, to give the device:

   1. a product name e.g. Catalyst 2650
   2. a vendor name e.g. Cisco
   3. and we then can assign a type to it e.g., switch.

   All SNMP agents support this variable. The device type list contains everything the discovery engine can currently identify.

   A separate process "Network Object Procedures" allows custom procedures to be applied to devices, for example to find out where in the vendor part of the SNMP MIB tree to get serial numbers for a device. Codima can implement the custom procedures and apply them to the autoMap™, see entry below titled Adding new devices.

   If the device also supports WMI we can get even more detailed info on the device (not controlled by "Network Object Procedures").

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4. How does Codima Discovery Engine deal with firewalls? How does Codima Discovery Engine deal with firewalls?

   The Codima discovery engine interacts with firewalls in much the same way as other management applications. Ideally a firewall should be configured so that the Host PC (used by autoMap™) is set up as a trusted device that is allowed to communicate through the firewall. In order for the autoMap™ discovery to work the Host PC needs to transmit and receive ICMP, SNMP, NetBIOS and WMI traffic.

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5. What is the network utilization (bandwidth) associated with running the discovery engine? What is the network utilization (bandwidth) associated with running the discovery engine?

   Each device takes a maximum of 64kbit/s, i.e., one ISDN channel. Note that this is a maximum, and the average is more around 30kbit/s. Each device is actually assigned one process, and each process is tuned to use up to 64kbit/s maximum. Therefore, the number of parallel processes determines the number of devices that may be processed at the same time. And this determines the maximum bandwidth that will be used.

   For example, if the number of parallel processes is set to 10 (maximum with autoMap™) and there are 10 devices in the inventory stack, the discovery engine will process those 10 devices in parallel. And will use UP TO 640kbit/second.

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6. Can the Codima Discovery Engine support NAT'ed IP ranges? Can the Codima Discovery Engine support NAT'ed IP ranges?

   Due of the nature of NAT networks the autoMap™ application will retrieve the ARP table from edge NAT router but will not talk to any of the devices in the NAT subnet. There are 2 solutions:

   1. Deploy the autoMap™ Host PC so that it is within the NAT subnet and do a discovery for that subnet. You can use the Merge facility, to combine the discovery information with an earlier discovery.
   2. Create a VPN connection from the remote autoMap™ PC to the NAT subnet this will discovery all the devices in the NAT

   autoMap™ retrieves (using WMI) the installed applications, Services and tasks running on all PCs within a Domain as long as you are the domain administrator.

   Note: To view this information you will need to have the autoAsset™ Addon.

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