HP Network Direr Software Products manual Using 3COM Network Director on a MULTI-SITE Network

712CHAPTER 17: USING 3COM NETWORK DIRECTOR ON A MULTI-SITE NETWORK

In order to discover a single device, 3Com Network Director queries the device for information about its features, current configuration and other devices that are known to it. This can generate a large amount of traffic, particularly for complex devices.

If you discover all of the devices on all of the subnets at a remote site then this has the potential to increase the utilization of the WAN links in the path to that site to the point where it has a noticeable impact upon latency and may even oversubscribe the WAN links. This could not only cause problems for the Network Discovery process, but could also affect any other applications that are communicating over these links.

In addition, restricting the devices that will be discovered to only core devices will further reduce the traffic overheads of the Network Discovery process, as any non-core devices will be discarded before 3Com Network Director begins querying the devices for feature, configuration and topology information. By limiting the subnets that are discovered to important subnets only and by further restricting the discovery on those subnets to particular IP address ranges you will reduce the traffic overheads of the Network Discovery process and so decrease the likelihood that it will have a noticeable impact upon the performance of your WAN links.

Speeds up the Network Discovery process.

The length of time that it takes a Network Discovery to complete depends upon various factors including the size of the subnets, or the ranges within those subnets, that are being discovered, the number of devices that are discovered on each subnet, the types of devices that are to be discovered, the latency and reliability of the paths between 3Com Network Director and the devices being discovered and the complexity of the devices that are discovered.

By limiting the subnets that are discovered to important subnets only and by further restricting the discovery on those subnets to particular IP address ranges you can reduce the time it takes for the IP Ping stage of Network Discovery and reduce the number of devices that will be queried for feature, configuration and topology information. See “IP Ping ” on page 93 for more details of this Network Discovery stage.

In addition, restricting the devices that will be discovered to only core devices may further reduce the number of devices that will be queried for feature, configuration and topology information.