Ipswitch WhatsConnected

Overview:

WhatsConnected is a layer 2 and layer 3 network discovery and visualization plug-in for WhatsUp Gold that equips you with a comprehensive tool set to accurately depict and visualize device connectivity down to the individual port. Leveraging powerful discovery tools, WhatsConnected locates all devices on the network including critical device connectivity and interdependencies Its unique in-depth technology goes far beyond typical IP discovery and mapping solutions by providing detailed hardware inventory and configuration information.

The Network Manager’s Dilemma

As networks become simpler to create, they have at the same time become significantly more complex to manage and monitor especially without the tools to document and understand the port-to-port connectivity between devices. Why is this important? If you can’t understand how devices in your network are connected, their interdependencies, and their locations; how simple can it be to locate problems and resolve them before the impact of a failure is realized? Establishing that device connectivity is not the source of problems is one of the first priorities when troubleshooting network issues.

WhatsConnected provides the key functions network professionals need in order to discover, map, search, inventory and document their physical topology and VMware® virtualized infrastructures.

As more organizations implement server and application virtualization there is a need to accurately discover, map and document associations between physical and virtualized environments. WhatsConnected provides the essential information to completely understand deployed VMware infrastructure within your datacenter.

Discover

WhatsConnected moves far beyond typical IP discovery tools by assembling information from every device in the network to provide detailed physical connectivity, device type, asset/inventory and configuration information and presenting it in an easy to understand format. In addition to using the standard layer 3 discovery mechanisms, WhatsConnected uses a number of additional technologies, including ARP, LLDP and manufacturer proprietary mechanisms to discover information about devices and their connectivity.

Map

Gaining insight into and understanding how your network is put together has never been easier. WhatsConnected simplifies this tedious task with auto-generated topology maps with full visibility into both physical and IP connectivity, including VLAN-specific information and VMware . Maps are fully customizable and allow for any number of different views to be specified. Layer 2 maps generated by WhatsConnected can be directly imported into WhatsUp Gold with a single click.

Search

Quickly search and find out how devices are connected to the network. With detailed device views, you can quickly zero in to find out what’s connected to what. Additionally with built-in tools such as Layer 2 Trace and IP/MAC Finder, WhatsConnected offers a much quicker approach to finding the location and validating connectivity of devices on the network than any other solution.

 

Document

With highly detailed topology maps now available through WhatsConnected, you also have the option to publish any of these maps through Microsoft® Visio™ with a couple of mouse clicks. Any number of automatically generated maps or custom map views can be exported to provide you with the ability to understand how device additions and design changes have impacted your network over time. Inventory information on devices gathered during the discovery process can be exported in either CSV or Excel formats to external applications.

Understand What's Connected

Not only do you now know what’s connected to what, but also what type of devices they are. WhatsConnected’s inventory capability provides platform identification and classification for devices from all the most widely deployed network equipment manufacturers including:

• Cisco/Linksys
• Foundry
• HP Procurve
• Nortel/Bay Networks
• 3COM
• Extreme
• Netgear

• Dell PowerConnect
• DLink
• SMC
• VMware
• Alcatel
• Allied Telesyn
• and many more...

The Power of Layer 2 Topology Integrated with WhatsUp Gold Monitoring

WhatsConnected combines the power of layer 2/3 discovery and intuitive topology maps with WhatsUp Gold’s powerful management and monitoring capabilities. As a fully integrated plug-in for all editions of WhatsUp Gold v12.3 (Standard, Premium, Distributed and MSP Editions), WhatsConnected provides a simple approach for you to understand your network infrastructure to identify and create powerful monitoring strategies.

A simple right-click on any topology map will export device information from WhatsConnected to WhatsUp Gold and automate the creation of consolidated MapViews along with performance and active monitors for the connected interfaces.
 

After the topology maps are imported to WhatsUp Gold, WhatsConnected automatically integrates data with WhatsUp Gold data to ensure that no duplicate devices exist. All layer 2 and layer 3 connectivity between devices is automatically validated and integrated into existing WhatsUp Gold map views and you can choose to create performance or active monitors automatically to immediately start monitoring devices or layer 2 connectivity. No manual intervention is required to establish physical connectivity or configuration of active or performance monitors for link or device monitoring.

How WhatsConnected Helps You

Save Time

Spend time effectively managing your network instead of wasting it on manual documentation of your network topology and networked devices.

Stay in Control

Know exactly what devices are on your network, what they are and where they are. Understand device interdependencies and how they are affected by changes and failures.

Track Changes

With up to date status information, you can know when changes have occurred on your network and track them. Understand and document the evolution of your network.

Keep the Network Available

Rapidly pinpoint issues to minimize downtime and gain insight into how your network topology and infrastructure can be configured to minimize potential conflicts and optimize performance.

Be the Expert

With an accurate network topology, including information on attached devices and their exact configuration, inventory and connectivity, you become the ultimate resource for network knowledge and status.

Features:

Discover

• IP networks & associated subnets
• Layer 2 connectivity
• Layer 3 addressing
• VLAN connectivity New in 1.5
• Virtualized devices and systems New in 1.5
• Non-contiguous subnets
• Switch port connectivity
• Devices without IP addresses
• VMware physical hardware, virtualized hardware, OSs & applications New in 1.5
• Spanning Tree and Bridge Port information
• Support for devices from every major network equipment manufacturer including; Cisco/Linksys, Foundry, Juniper, Nortel, 3Com, Extreme, Dell, Alcatel, DLink, SMC and others
• Device asset and configuration information New in 1.5

Visualize

• Auto-creation of topology maps
• Display of physical topology in either spoke, hierarchical or custom views
• Displays both physical and virtualized infrastructures New in 1.5
• Correlation of layer 2 connectivity to layer 3 addressing
• Export network maps to Visio 2003 & 2007 using Visio, Cisco and WhatsUp Gold device templates
• Printing of any type of network map

Manage

• Management and configuration of network discovery, maps and display of device information
• Sorting and display of network device information based on device categories, device list, topology maps, subnets or link views and virtualized environments: including physical hardware, VMware operating environment, virtual machines, guest OSs, memory New in 1.5
• Printing of inventory and configuration data and network topology maps
• Automatic classification of network devices by type and groups devices accordingly
• Any of the device categories can be modified, deleted or a new category can be added New in 1.5
• Device categories can be dragged and dropped into any order and all association are maintained New in 1.5
• Support for configuration of both SSH and SNMPv3 credentials for enhanced security New in 1.55
• Support of wild card search for device configuration, inventory or other device specific information

Layer 2 Trace

• Automated creation of device dependencies in WhatsUp Gold based upon path trace.
• The up/down status of each interface is validated automatically.
• Validation of end-to-end connectivity over a defined path
• Support of both LAN or WAN connectivity
• Display of in-bound and out-bound interfaces for each network device in the path

IP/MAC Finder

• Location of either IP or MAC addresses for a device
• Display of network device and connectivity

WhatsUp Gold Integration

• Export of automatically created layer 2 topology maps with full device connectivity to WhatsUp Gold
• Automatic creation of Active and Performance Monitors in WhatsUp Gold for immediate connectivity monitoring

Highlights:

In addition to discovery and mapping and the improved management console, there are a number of additional features and tools included with WhatsConnected to provide additional information about your network, including; Layer 2 Trace, IP/MAC Address Finder, Visio Support and network device inventory and configuration.

Network Discovery

Using a number of innovative layer 2 and layer 3 network discovery technologies, WhatsConnected finds all the connected devices on the network including those without IP addresses. WhatsConnected leverages standards based technologies, including ARP, SNMP, IP addressing, ICMP and LLDP in combination with vendor proprietary mechanisms to build a complete and accurate picture of network devices and their interconnections.

You can now fully understand which routers are attached to which switches and how switches are connected to one another and any other device in your network. This saves precious time and resources versus conducting a tedious visual port-by-port connectivity verification and documentation process. In addition, WhatsConnected delivers detailed information about virtualized environments and services running on VMware.

Visual Network Mapping

Based upon discovery, WhatsConnected automatically generates integrated network topology maps showing both layer 3 addressing and layer 2 connectivity. Unlike manual documentation processes, you can be assured that the connectivity and topology information that is generated is complete and accurate, as it is based upon actual device information gathered.

Additionally you have complete flexibility to display topology information in radial and hierarchical formats. Maps can be customized to show any aspect of the topology and individual links can be hidden or shown. Custom topology maps can also be generated using manual mapping mode. Any map generated or customized can be saved, printed and shared.

Inventory and Configuration

As part of the discovery process, WhatsConnected collects comprehensive hardware inventory and configuration information for all networking devices including:

Inventory and configuration information is essential for understanding the actual OS and firmware versions that are currently running on discovered devices. This is particularly important as some issues might be resolved by simply updating to a more recent OS or firmware version. With WhatsConnected, device inventories can be printed to provide inventory and configuration reporting.

WhatsConnected Console

The versatile WhatsConnected Windows console is the main interface to manage network discovery, create and administer maps and access detailed device inventory and configuration information. Several views of the network are presented including:

• Device Categories View – explorer type view of devices
• Device View – spreadsheet type view of all devices
• Topology Maps View – layer 2 physical topology view
• Subnets View – spreadsheet type view of devices grouped by their respective subnets
• Links View – spreadsheet type view of all known connectivity

All discovered devices are sorted automatically by type and presented in Device Categories. Simply clicking on a specific device from within the explorer type view provides you with a wealth of additional information about the device.

• System information – IP/MAC address, MIB II
• IP Address information– IP address configuration data
• Interface information – IF entries with status
• Bridge Port information – Bridge Port information and VLAN configuration data
• VLAN information – VLAN configuration data
• Asset information – inventory data for chassis and modules
• Link information – physical connectivity from the device to other network devices
• IP Routing information – IP routing configuration data
• Spanning Tree information – Spanning-Tree configuration and status data
• ARP Cache information – ARP table data
• Forwarding information – Layer 2 forwarding data
• Protocol Profile information – configured protocols on the device
• Virtual Host information – configuration of physical hardware hosting for VMware
• Virtual Machines information – VMware virtual machines running on physical hardware
• Virtual Machine information – specific details on each virtual machine

From within the WhatsConnected console, you have the power to access all relevant information about the network and view and sort network information to best suit your needs. Any information on any device or group of devices can be accessed and printed for reporting or archiving purposes.

Layer 2 Trace

One of the most difficult jobs in network management is locating and eliminating connectivity issues on the network. Accessed from either the WhatsConnected or WhatsUp Gold management consoles, Layer 2 Trace arms you with a powerful tool to rapidly pinpoint physical layer connectivity issues by validating that the end-to-end connectivity through designated devices over a defined path is working.

Once the origin and destination of the trace are defined, each device IP address and each in-bound and out-bound interface along the path is displayed in a table. Layer 2 trace can be configured to display path connectivity for both LANs and WANs.

IP/MAC Finder

The IP/MAC Finder tool is a fast and simple way to locate an IP or MAC address on a network from either the WhatsConnected or WhatsUp Gold consoles. Using discovery information, the IP/MAC Finder correlates an IP address to a physical MAC hardware address. The information the IP/MAC Finder tool displays includes the device or system associated with the IP or MAC address and to which network interface either the IP or MAC address is directly connected.

Visio Support

Any map generated by WhatsConnected can be exported to Visio 2003 & 2007 in a few mouse clicks. When importing maps into Visio you have the flexibility to represent devices in Visio, Cisco or WhatsUp template shapes. The Visio export feature is invaluable, as it allows you to establish a baseline so that you can understand how your network evolves over time, as well as capture and track changes to your physical topology and devices.

Documentation:

Download the Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold WhatsConnected Datasheet (PDF).