Migrating network topology

To ensure that you have network topology on the target system, run a full discovery. Optionally, migrate managed status for devices, and any custom, manually created topology.

To migrate network topology, perform the following steps for each discovery domain:

  1. Stop and start all Network Manager processes on the target installation to ensure that the domain is updated with customization changes.
  2. Run a full discovery on the target installation.
  3. If you created manual topology on your source installation, complete all the following steps. If you did not manually add or remove any devices to your network topology on your source installation, skip to step 7.
  4. On your new installation, navigate to the following location $NCHOME/var/precision/export/manualtopology.
    This directory contains XML files listing the devices and connections manually added to each domain on your previous system. There is one file for each domain. Each file is named as follows:
    ManualTopology.DOMAIN.xml

    Where DOMAIN is the name of the relevant domain.

  5. Open the XML file for the domain you want to update with manually created topology data.
  6. Apply the changes to your new discovery using the topology management wizards within the Network Hop View.
    • You can manually add devices from any Network Hop View window.
    • To manually add connections, the best practice is to point the Network Hop View window to the a-end device (specified using the fromdevice attribute in the connection) and create a manual connection to the b-end device (specified using the todevice attribute).

    Perform the following steps to use the topology management wizards to add the devices and connections in the example XML code snippet to the topology.

    1. Click the Incident icon and select Network Availability > Network Hop View.
    2. Select a network domain from the Domain drop-down list corresponding to line 2 in the example XML code below.
    3. Add all the devices specified in the XML file by performing the following steps:
      1. Right click anywhere within Network Hop View and then click Topology Management > Add Device.
      2. In the Add Device wizard, add the device aog.dom39.1 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 21 to 35 of the XML file.
        Note: Be aware of the following:
        • Attributes in the XML file appear in alphabetical order. This is different to the order in which they are requested by the GUI.
        • The XML file might not show all attributes requested by the GUI for a given device or connection. Where attributes are missing, do not enter any values in the GUI.
        Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Close. The device you added appears in the Network Hop View.
      3. Right click anywhere within Network Hop View, then click Topology Management > Add Device and add the device aog.dom39.2 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 36 to 42 of the XML file. Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Close. The device you added appears in the Network Hop View.
      4. Right click anywhere within Network Hop View, then click Topology Management > Add Device and add the device aog.dom39.3 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 43 to 48 of the XML file. Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Close. The device you added appears in the Network Hop View.
    4. Add all the connections specified in the XML file by performing the following steps:
      1. In the Network Hop View, navigate to a hop view that contains the device aog.dom39.1.
      2. Right click device aog.dom39.1 and click Topology Management > Add Connection.
      3. In the Add Connection wizard, add a connection from device aog.dom39.1 to device aog.dom39.2 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 4 to 8 of the XML file. Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Recenter & Close. The connection you added appears in the Network Hop View.
      4. In the Network Hop View, ensure that you are in a hop view that contains the device aog.dom39.2, then right click device aog.dom39.2 and click Topology Management > Add Connection. Add a connection from device aog.dom39.2 to interface [ GigabitEthernet0/1/0/1 ] on device 172.20.1.3 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 9 to 13 of the XML file. Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Recenter & Close. The connection you added appears in the Network Hop View.
      5. In the Network Hop View, ensure that you are in a hop view that contains the device 172.20.1.3, then right click device 172.20.1.3 and click Topology Management > Add Connection. Add a connection from interface [ Null0 ] on device 172.20.1.3 to interface [ Nu0 ] on device 172.20.3.3 by specifying the attributes listed in lines 14 to 20 of the XML file. Complete all the wizard screens and click Finish, followed by Recenter & Close. The connection you added appears in the Network Hop View.
  7. If you had any devices on your source installation that were unmanaged, complete the following steps for each domain. Unmanaged devices are not polled by Network Manager and not included in RCA. If all your devices were managed, then you do not need to complete the following steps.
  8. On the target installation, change to the following directory: $NCHOME/precision/bin
  9. Run the UnmanageNode.pl script for the domain you want to update with managed status data.
    Use a command similar to the following:
    ncp_perl UnmanageNode.pl -domain DOMAIN_NAME -user ncim -pwd password -noMainNodeLookup -file 
$NCHOME/var/precision/export/managedstatus/UnmanagedEntities.DOMAIN_NAME.dat

    Where:

    • DOMAIN_NAME is the domain you are updating with managed status data.
    • password is the password for the ncim user.
    • The .dat file is a list of unmanaged entities that was generated by the export process. There is one list for each domain.

    The script outputs the names of the main nodes and interfaces that were placed into unmanaged status. For example:

    'aaa-11-12345.core.test.lab[ Lo0 ]' unmanaged.
'bbb-22-12345.core.eu.test.lab' unmanaged.

Adding a manually added device and connection to the network topology

The following example shows how to add a device and how to add a connection using an XML code snippet from an XML file produced by the import script. The XML code snippet below represents three manually added devices, and three manually added connections.
Note: Tag entries for connections appear before entries for devices in the XML file. However, when reapplying the manual topology using the Topology Editor, you must first add all of the devices specified in the file, and subsequently add the connections.
Table 1. XML code snippet from a manual topology file 
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<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<ManualTopology domain="DOMAIN_39"
                version="3.9" >  
<Connection connectivity="Layer 3 Meshed Topology"
              fromdevice="aog.dom39.1"
              reason="reas"
              speed="1111"
              todevice="aog.dom39.2" />  
<Connection connectivity="Layer 3 Meshed Topology"
              fromdevice="aog.dom39.2"
              reason=""
              todevice="172.20.1.3"
              tointerface="[ GigabitEthernet0/1/0/1 ]" />  
<Connection connectivity="Layer 2 Topology"
              fromdevice="172.20.1.3"
              frominterface="[ Null0 ]"
              reason=""
              speed="2345"
              todevice="172.20.3.3"
              tointerface="[ Nu0 ]" />  
<Device entityname="aog.dom39.1"
          accessipaddress="192.168.11.1"
          accessprotocol="IPv4"
          classname="Cisco"
          description="aog.dom39.1 desc"
          displaylabel="aog.dom39.1"
          ipforwarding="forwarding"
          modelname="aog.dom39.1 modelname"
          reason="aog.dom39.1 reason"
          serialnumber="ser.123"
          syscontact="aog.dom39.1 syscont"
          sysdescr="aog.dom39.1 sysdesc"
          syslocation="aog.dom39.1 sysloc"
          sysname="aog.dom39.1 sysname"
          typename="Chassis" />  
<Device entityname="aog.dom39.2"
          accessipaddress="192.168.11.2"
          accessprotocol="IPv4"
          classname="Cisco"
          displaylabel="aog.dom39.2"
          reason=""
          typename="Chassis" />  
<Device entityname="aog.dom39.3"
          accessprotocol="IPv4"
          classname="Cisco"
          displaylabel="aog.dom39.3"
          reason=""
          typename="Chassis" />
</ManualTopology>
The following table summarizes the elements and attributes in this XML code snippet:
Table 2. Description of the XML code snippet from a manual topology file
Line number Description
2 Domain to which this manual topology applies.
4 - 8 Manual connection between a manually added device "aog.dom39.1" and another manually added device "aog.dom39.2".
9 - 13 Manual connection between a manually added device "aog.dom39.2" and interface [ GigabitEthernet0/1/0/1 ] on discovered device 172.20.1.3.
Note: The device 172.20.1.3 does not appear within a <Device> tag in this file; hence it is not a manually added device and therefore must be a discovered device.
14 - 20 Manual connection between interface [ Null0 ] on discovered device 72.20.1.3 to interface [ Nu0 ] on discovered device 172.20.3.3.
Note: The device 172.20.3.3 does not appear within a <Device> tag in this file; hence it is not a manually added device and therefore must be a discovered device.
21 - 35 Manually added device aog.dom39.1.
36 -42 Manually added device aog.dom39.2.
43 - 49 Manually added device aog.dom39.3.