Owner's Manual

Discovery 187
12
Discovery
Resource Discovery Overview
Discovery is how the application identifies and catalogs network elements. Once discovery
identifies a network element, you can create Resources, so the application can communicate with
the element. The type and depth of discovery depends on installed applications and device drivers.
Discovery based on installed drivers consists of physical discovery and (potentially) link discovery.
Physical discovery represents the device and all of its sub-components including modules, ports
and interfaces. Link Discovery represents established links between neighbor devices, based upon
protocol type.
You can do discovery interactively, as described in Resource Discovery on page 192, or you can set it
up in advance as described in Resource Discovery Profiles on page 204 and schedule it for
automatic execution, as described in Schedule on page 207.
Once discovery finds a device, it classifies that device as a Discovered Entity in the Resources
manager unless the installed device drivers override this description and more accurately describe
the discovered device.
NOTE:
Expect longer discovery times if the discovered devices support OpenManage Network Manager’s pools,
since the database retrieves additional data for those devices.