Discovering device existence

The discovery of device existence is carried out in several steps.

Figure 1 shows how the initial existence of devices on the network is discovered.

Figure 1. Discovery process flow: device existence
Concept diagram that describes how the initial existence of devices on the network are discovered.

The process flow shown in Figure 1 is described below.

  •  1 : The finders receive their instructions from their configuration files and the inserts made into the finders.despatch table, then proceed to the network to look for devices.
  •  2 : The finders return the device existence information to the finders.returns table.
  •  3 : After the device existence information is placed into the finders.returns table, a stitcher moves the information to the finders.processing table. This signifies that the network entity is being processed by DISCO. If the discovery is in the blackout state, the information is placed into the finders.pending table instead.
  •  4 : A stitcher moves the information about device existence from the finders.processing table to the Details.despatch table, ready for processing by the Details agent.