Feature Preview: Router and Switch Module Assignment to Network Interface Ports

This new feature made it into the JDisc Discovery 3.0.

Enterprise routers and switches often have module slots for extension modules. Those modules often provide new high speed network ports such as 10GB ethernet uplinks. Of course, administrators want to know which modules are part of a switch or router. JDisc Discovery did collect this information already when the Networking Add-On is installed. The hardware tab within the device details shows already the list of modules that are part of a router or switch. We do also collect the list of all network interfaces for all devices.

So far, so good. However a customer told us, that it would be essential for him to know which network interface resides on what module! That information was not stored in JDisc’s database and our engineers started investigating how to implement the new feature. Luckily, it was not a big deal and the coming JDisc Discovery 3.0 build will gather this information.

Our user interface has been extended to display the additional relationship. First, the interface report lists for each network interface the module that the network interface resides on. Of course, only, if this information is available from the actual manufacturer. But the most important vendors maintain this information pretty well.

The screenshot above shows a typical HP ProCurve Switch with its interfaces. The columns marked in red a  new. They indicate the module where the interface resides on.

We also slightly extended the Modules tab. The new column Interface Count indicates how many network interfaces sit on a specific module. A double click opens a new report that lists only interfaces for a selected module.