Network Discovery Optimization via Neighbor Supplemental Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional network discovery processes waste significant time in large networks due to the inability to differentiate between devices that support management protocols like SNMP, leading to numerous timeouts when querying end point devices that do not have protocol support.
Innovation Solution
The implementation utilizes supplemental information about neighboring devices to determine whether they support the communication protocol used for network discovery, allowing the crawling algorithm to skip devices that are unlikely to respond, thereby optimizing the network discovery process by avoiding unnecessary queries.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If a conventional crawling algorithm is used to discover all devices in the network, then complete network topology information can be obtained, but significant time is wasted due to timeouts when querying end point devices that do not support management protocols
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary queries to seed devices to obtain supplemental information about their neighboring devices before attempting full protocol-based discovery. This preliminary action identifies end point devices that are unlikely to support management protocols, allowing the crawling algorithm to skip these devices and avoid timeout delays during the main discovery process.
2Productivity
If the crawling algorithm queries all neighboring devices regardless of protocol support, then no device is missed in the discovery process, but the system wastes considerable time on devices that will timeout
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts supplemental information from seed devices that indicates which neighboring devices are end point devices without management protocol support. This extracted information is then used to remove these devices from the crawling algorithm's target list, allowing the discovery process to focus only on devices that are likely to respond to protocol-based queries.
3Loss of time
If supplemental information is obtained from seed devices to identify end point devices, then unnecessary queries can be avoided, but additional querying overhead is introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs a preliminary query to seed devices to obtain supplemental information about their neighbors. Although this adds an initial querying step, it prevents multiple timeout delays that would occur during the main discovery process when querying end point devices. The preliminary action trades a single efficient query for avoiding multiple timeous operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems and computer readable media for optimizing (or improving) network discovery using supplemental information published by devices and available on their neighbor devices are described. In some implementations, the method can include obtaining, at a network management computer system, a list of one or more seed devices. The method can also include retrieving a device identifier of a corresponding seed device from the list of one or more seed devices. The method can further include querying, at the network management computer system, the corresponding seed device to obtain neighboring device connectivity information of the seed device and supplemental information for each neighboring device.