Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial Table Of Contents LAYER 2 DISCOVERY AND MAPPING TUTORIAL................................................. 2 1.1 Foreword .......................................................................................................................................3 1.2 Introduction....................................................................................................................................4 1.3 Layer2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial Tour ...............................................................................6 1.4 Application Overview.....................................................................................................................8 2. TRY IT YOURSELF ............................................................................................. 10 3. APPLICATION DESIGN ...................................................................................... 15 4. DETAILED IMPLEMENTATION .......................................................................... 17 4.1 Creating a Layer2 Project............................................................................................................18 4.2 Discovery.....................................................................................................................................20 4.2.1 Creating Discovery Filter ......................................................................................................20 4.3 Mapping.......................................................................................................................................22 4.3.1 Creating Map Filter ...............................................................................................................22 4.3.2 Customizing and Configuring Custom Maps ........................................................................24 4.3.3 Navigating Custom Switch Map............................................................................................28 4.3.4 Status Polling for Layer2 Devices.........................................................................................30 4.4 Packaging the Project .................................................................................................................33 5. FAST TRACT IMPLEMENTATION..................................................................... 34 6. CONTROL FLOW DIAGRAM.............................................................................. 35 7 DEPLOYMENT AND TESTING ............................................................................ 36 7.1 Installation Notes.........................................................................................................................36 7.2 Application Testing ......................................................................................................................38 8. KNOWN ISSUES ................................................................................................. 39 9. TROUBLE SHOOTING TIPS............................................................................... 40 10. GLOSSARY ....................................................................................................... 41 11 APPENDIX.......................................................................................................... 43 11.1 Fundamental Concepts .............................................................................................................43 11.2 Layer2 Application Classes .......................................................................................................45 12. OTHER TUTORIALS ......................................................................................... 47 AdventNet Inc. 1 Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial AdventNet Web NMS Version 1.0 This tutorial guides you in designing an application to discover the layer2 devices. It is supported by a working, illustrative example. Copyright © 1996-2002 AdventNet, Inc. 5645 Gibraltar Drive Pleasanton, CA 95014 http://www.adventnet.com [email protected] AdventNet Inc. 2 Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial 1.1 Foreword AdventNet Web NMS provides real world network management solutions to telecommunications and enterprise markets with a range of advanced network management features. The two important needs of the market, easy customization and faster deployment are met with the help of AdventNet Web NMS Studio. Different types of applications can be built with AdventNet Web NMS. This tutorial will serve as a simple guide to build a Layer2 Discovery and Mapping application. • A Brief Note on AdventNet Web NMS • Understanding Fundamental Concepts Real World Layer2 Discovery Solutions Any computer network / internetwork is designed based on the OSI standards. The design may adhere either strictly or loosely to the OSI Reference Model (an ANSI standard). Each layer performs a set of functions unique to it. Layer 2 in a network, is the 'data-link' layer. It is this layer where data- packets are encoded and decoded into 'bits'. Error handling and flow control is also handled in this layer. This layer comprises the MAC Layer (Media Access Control) and LLC Layer (Logical Link Layer). The MAC layer determines how a computer in a network gains access to data and transmits the same. The LLC handles frame-synchronization, flow control and error- checking. It therefore becomes important to monitor and manage any fault in this layer, especially in today's world where Network Management is a mammoth task. AdventNet Web NMS is a Network Management Solution. You can customize Web NMS to suit your requirements. If you need to discover and manage these layer2 devices, you can build your application on Web NMS. Optical Network Management Solution is one of the Real World Network Management Solutions. A Brief Note on AdventNet Web NMS AdventNet Web NMS is designed as a development framework for building management systems and applications in multiple domains. The core information model is simple and is easy to learn and extend for each application. The elements of the core model are designed for IP networks and are sufficient to represent common IP networks. Few factors that make AdventNet Web NMS the preferred network management solution are • Immense scalability • Customizability • Extensibility • Easy deployment AdventNet Web NMS uses the database mode. It uses MySql as the default RDBMS which stores the objects in the topology database in the form of relational tables. Understanding Fundamental Concepts Before we jump-start into building a custom application using AdventNet Web NMS, it is imperative to understand a few basic concepts. The 'Fundamental Concepts' section of this tutorial is a brief tour through these concepts. A quick run through the application life cycle will follow, giving you an idea of the flow in the application. The concepts that you must be familiar with are • OSI Reference Layers • Spanning Tree Protocol AdventNet Inc. 3 Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial 1.2 Introduction Here is a real time situation where you would like to build a solution for Layer2 Discovery and Mapping. Let us say you want a switch to be shown as a container with the switch in the middle and all the nodes that are connected to it. The port numbers to which the nodes are connected are to be displayed on the Links between the switch and the node. Objective of the Tutorial This tutorial will help you understand and build a Layer2 Discovery and Mapping application using AdventNet Web NMS Studio to meet your needs. The use of AdventNet Web NMS Studio helps in building this application with very little or zero coding, resulting in faster development and easy deployment. This tutorial helps you build only a sample application. The application adopts a generic network device (i.e., a Switch, which supports SNMP) as an example. This limited scope example will serve only to illustrate what can be built on AdventNet Web NMS and it is only a subset of the custom capabilities of AdventNet Web NMS. This example can be extended for applications with similar needs. About this Tutorial • Intended User • Prerequisites • Related Sources • Printed Version • Tutorial conventions Intended User Do you want to build an application for Layer2 Discovery and Mapping? Then you are in the right place! This tutorial will help you build one. As stated earlier, you may extend the given application too if it can meet your specific needs. Prerequisites You must have • Knowledge of Network Management System • Knowledge of Java Programming • Fair knowledge of SQL and relational database concepts (not a must !) Related Sources This tutorial makes constant references to AdventNet Web NMS and AdventNet Web NMS Studio. Minimal information is provided in this tutorial. If you want to know more about the product and the tools, refer to the Web sites given below: For AdventNet Web NMS Studio Documentation, visit <Web NMS Home>/StudioTools/Studio/help/index.html For AdventNet Web NMS Documentation, visit http://www.adventnet.com/products/webnms/help.html AdventNet Inc. 4 Layer 2 Discovery and Mapping Tutorial Printed Version To print this tutorial • Ensure that Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed in your system • Download the PDF version of this document from the following URL http://www.adventnet.com/products/webnms/layer2_tutorial.pdf Tutorial Conventions The typographic conventions followed in this tutorial are Font Style Uses Arial Bold Filename Arial Italic Directory Arial