Introduction to Network Discovery - Adaptive Applications - BlueCat Gateway - 22.1

Network Discovery Administration Guide

Locale
English
Product name
BlueCat Gateway
Version
22.1

BlueCat Adaptive Applications are licensed, out-of-the-box applications that provide you with advanced DDI functionality with minimal configuration. Adaptive Applications extend the functionality of the BlueCat core Adaptive DNS platform, DNS Integrity, in specific areas to drive increased customer value and competitive differentiation.

The Network Discovery adaptive application searches for IPv4 addresses on network devices within your organization, retrieving data for devices on subnets that are not directly accessible from Address Manager. This information is returned to Address Manager, where it can be reconciled with existing Address Manager data. This app integrates with and extends existing network discovery features in Address Manager.

In addition to scanning for devices on regular routers and switches, you can use this app to discover devices connected to networks that have been segmented using VRF configuration on Cisco Nexus 9000 switches. VRF allows for multiple instances of a routing table to exist and function within the same virtual router.

Network Discovery is built on the BlueCat Gateway platform. It consists of two main components:

  • Network Discovery Management: Runs the user interface (UI) and APIs that perform management operations. From the UI, you can:

    • Add a new IPv4 Reconciliation Policy with the discovery configuration to be used by Network Discovery's discovery engine.
    • Delete an IPv4 Reconciliation Policy that you added.
    • Run an IPv4 Reconciliation Policy right away.
    • Update the details of an existing IPv4 Reconciliation policy.
    • Verify Network Discovery configuration after it is installed.
  • Network Discovery Probe: The discovery probes and APIs that perform external discovery probe operations. You can configure these to run at specific intervals for specific policies.

How the Network Discovery app works

The Network Discovery app acquires information from routers using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) or LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) interrogation techniques, depending on which is used by the router. It queries Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches to discover the IP address, hardware address, and DNS host names (if DNS is available) for hosts on your network.

The Network Discovery app can also send ICMP packets to discover the IP address for hosts on your network.

System requirements

The following are required for the Network Discovery for VRF adaptive app.
  • BlueCat Address Manager version 9.3 or greater.
  • Within BlueCat Address Manager, an account that the Network Discovery app can use whose User Type is Administrator and Access Type is GUI and API.
  • One or more servers capable of running Docker with BlueCat Gateway containers
  • (Optional) Network Discovery can also be deployed on BlueCat DNS/DHCP servers.