Network Topology Diagrams – Persistence and Aggregations

Introduction

Network data is most useful when you can follow the relationships behind it. JDisc Discovery already provides built-in reports for examining discovered information, while diagrams offer another way to view, navigate, and work with connected entities in the Web UI. With release 5199, JDisc Discovery introduced a new set of diagram capabilities. This follow-up focuses on three practical improvements: saving diagrams, collapsing large groups of nodes, and configuring diagram preferences.

Diagrams represent entities from discovered data as nodes. Edges show the relationships between those nodes. Depending on the entity type, you can choose which relationships to fetch and use the actions available for that entity. This gives you a focused visual view of a selected part of the network without losing the context of how the items are connected.

Why diagrams are useful alongside reports

Reports and diagrams serve different but complementary purposes. A report is often the right place to review a defined set of information in a structured list. A diagram can be more useful when the question is about relationships: what is connected to a selected entity, how does a group of items relate to the rest of the displayed data, or where should you continue investigating?

This is especially useful when a network contains many devices and other discovered entities. Instead of treating the diagram as a static illustration, you can navigate it, inspect entity details, and expand it where the next relationship matters. The result is a practical visual workspace based on the data that JDisc Discovery has discovered.

For a broader view of how relationship information can support operational work, see JDisc Dependency Mapping, which is designed to reveal communication paths between devices in the network.

Save diagrams for later use

One of the most useful additions is diagram persistence. You can save a diagram you have created and open it again later. This makes it possible to keep preconfigured views for information you need frequently, or to stop work at a useful point and continue at a later time.

You start a diagram from a report that supports diagrams by selecting the corresponding context-menu option. The diagram opens in its own dialog window. From there, you can navigate the diagram, view entity details, and interact with the displayed entities, potentially expanding the diagram as you follow relevant relationships.

When the diagram reaches the state you need, you can save it either for private use or for global use. Saved diagrams are available from a dashboard item in the reporting area. The dashboard also provides options to rename, duplicate, or delete a saved diagram.

Every saved diagram retains its own preferences. When you reopen it, you can make further changes and either save the revised diagram or discard the changes. This is helpful when the same starting view is useful to more than one person or when you want to return to a visual investigation without rebuilding it from the beginning.

Keep large diagrams readable with aggregation

Large networks can produce diagrams with many nodes and edges. At that point, the visual information is still valuable, but navigating every individual node may become difficult. The collapsing features address this by allowing you to aggregate a set of nodes into a single group node.

You can select multiple entity nodes and aggregate them, or aggregate the nodes related to a particular entity. The group node indicates the number of included nodes through its size and caption. Dotted edges summarize the group’s connections to the remaining entities in the diagram, preserving a useful indication of how the aggregated set relates to the surrounding data.

Aggregation is not a dead end. You can ungroup an aggregation node at any time, and the included nodes return to their initial positions in the diagram. Aggregations are also stored when you save the diagram, so the readable view you prepare can be reopened in the same form later.

Configure diagram preferences globally and locally

Diagram preferences are now available in the Preferences section of JDisc Discovery. Global preferences determine how new diagrams are created. This provides a consistent starting point when your team regularly works with diagrams.

The diagram window also retains a preferences menu option for the currently open diagram. This lets you adjust and apply certain preferences immediately while you work. When you save the opened diagram, those adjusted preferences are saved with it.

The preferences page also includes an aggregation tab. It contains settings for the aggregation feature, including the minimum number of nodes that can be aggregated. Together, global preferences, diagram-specific adjustments, and saved diagrams help you tailor a diagram to the task without changing every view manually.

See the features in action

The original feature presentation is also available as a short video.

If you would like to explore the reporting capabilities around JDisc Discovery in more detail, the reporting video tutorial track provides additional orientation. You can also download JDisc Discovery to evaluate it in your own environment.

Conclusion

The Web UI diagram enhancements make visual work with discovered relationships more practical: save a useful view, reduce visual complexity by aggregating related nodes, and set preferences globally or for an individual diagram. Used together, these capabilities help you return to relevant network context quickly while keeping larger diagrams manageable.

Future improvements are planned, and feedback and ideas are welcome. Please contact JDisc support or leave a comment.