Activating agents

You must enable the appropriate agents for the discovery you want to perform. You can specify agents for a full discovery or for a partial discovery.

You can speed up the time taken for a partial discovery by selecting only those agents essential to discover the new or modified devices. You might want to run a partial discovery if you know that new devices have been added to the network or that engineers have been working on a device and have added or removed components of this device.
Note: The more agents you run, the more data is retrieved from the network, and the slower the discovery.

To activate agents:

  1. Click the Discovery icon and select Network Discovery Configuration.
  2. From the Domain list, select the required domain.
  3. Click one of the following tabs, based on your requirements:
    Tab Description
    Full Discovery Agents Select agents from this tab to run a full discovery.
    Partial Discovery Agents Select agents from this tab to run a partial discovery.
    Note: The Reset button in the Partial Discovery Agents window sets the partial agents to match the settings defined in the Full Discovery Agents window.
    The Agents List is displayed, showing all available discovery agents for the selected discovery option.
  4. Select the check boxes next to the required agents.
    For descriptions of the agents, select an agent name.

    To select all agents required for a layer 3 discovery, select the Layer 3 checkbox. To select all agents required for a layers 2 and 3 discovery, select the Full Layer 2 and Layer 3 Discovery checkbox.

  5. Click Save Save button.
    If you have selected a invalid combination of agents, or a combination that might result in an inefficient discovery, a warning is displayed.
  6. If applicable, follow the steps displayed in the warning:
    • If you selected an agent that must be run in conjunction with another agent or agents, the warning indicates that the additional agents will be selected as applicable. Click OK to select the agents, or click Cancel.
    • If you selected an agent that cannot be run in conjunction with another agent or agents, the warning indicates that the redundant agents will be automatically deselected. Click OK to deselect the recommended agent or click Cancel.