User's Manual

Components 205

Keeping the Map Up-to-date

By carrying out rediscoveries of your network at regular intervals 3Com

Network Director maintains the map’s topology and keeps it up-to-date

with the physical layout of your network.

You can also carry out manual rediscoveries or automate them by setting

a schedule. Both of these techniques are described in “

Discovering the

Network” on page 91.

In addition to rediscovery, 3Com Network Director provides dynamic

support for keeping the map up-to-date by keeping track of people

logging in and out of your network.

Dynamic Network

3Com Network Director can dynamically track the users who are logged

in on your network. In order for 3Com Network Director to do this, the

users’ end stations must be connected to 3Com switches that have

Network Login functionality enabled.

For more information on Network Login functionality, see “

Network

When a user logs on or off the network, 3Com Network Director receives

an SNMP trap from the 3Com switch the user is connected to. This trap

includes details of the logon/off and 3Com Network Director uses this

data to dynamically update the network map.

If a user has logged onto the network from an end station, that is not

currently in the map, then this end station is dynamically added to the

map, and linked to the appropriate switch port.

If a user has logged on to the network from an end station that is

currently in the map, then the end station's properties are updated with

information about the logged-in user.

When an end station is dynamically added to the map, the port that the

end station is to be connected to may be already connected to another

device. In this case 3Com Network Director removes the existing link and,

if the device it was linked to is not connected to anything else, also

removes the device.

3Com Network Director can manage up to 5000 devices at one time. If a

user logs on to the network from an end station that is not currently in