Accessing discovery data from dNCIM

You can take advantage of post-discovery dNCIM broadcasts to retrieve updates to the network topology after each discovery completes. Internal Network Manager processes read this information on completion of a discovery. You can also configure third-party systems (Tivoli®-based or external) to access this topology data so that they have the latest topology updates.

About this task

Examples of such third-party systems that you might want to configure to read dNCIM data include the following:
  • TADDM can use this data in order to feed its application discovery. The data from dNCIM tells TADDM which hosts are present on the network, which is a first step to discovering the applications on those hosts.
  • IBM® Director can use this data to support the discovery of storage devices
  • An asset database can use this data to upload its asset information.
  • A security system can use the data to identify possible intrusions.
Getting data from dNCIM rather than using the DLA differs in the following ways.
  • The data is in a different format to the DLA.
  • The dNCIM data has not yet been sent to the Topology Manager, ncp_model, so the data is not consolidated with previous discoveries:
  • The data is lighter weight than the data that can be retrieved using the DLA.
  • The dNCIM broadcasts have the same format as the NCIM broadcasts transmitted by ncp_model, and the NCIM cache files.
To configure third-party systems to access discovery data from dNCIM, you must write a script to configure the Java™ or Perl API to listen for messages with the DNCIM2NCIM subject on the message bus.