Understand your network and application infrastructure.
If you don’t know it’s there, how do you manage it? Understanding is a key weapon in a network manager’s arsenal. If you can’t locate every network connected device, system, application and comprehend the whole picture instantly when something fails, where do you go? Hand drawn or stand-alone tool network diagrams are pretty, but do they really help you understand anything about what is going on? Automated network discovery is the basis of accurate network mapping and dependable network monitoring.

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WhatsUp Gold offers two levels of granularity for network discovery: Layer 3 discovery capabilities are built into all editions of WhatsUp Gold, and advanced Layer 2 / Layer 3 discovery is available via the WhatsConnected plug-in module.

WhatsUp Gold Layer 3 Discovery
WhatsUp Gold’s automated and rapid layer 3 device discovery uses wizard-based tools to simplify and make network discovery fool-proof, no matter the size or complexity of the network. No need for stand-alone tools to manually document your network. If it is connected it will be found, legitimate or rogue. Regularly scheduled discovery scans can be configured to find assets or services added after the initial scan.

WhatsUp supports the following discovery mechanisms:

Wizard-driven discovery

SNMP SmartScan
IP address range
Network Neighborhood

ICMP (Ping)
IP address
Hosts file import

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Advanced Layer 2 / Layer 3 Discovery with WhatsConnected
Building upon the comprehensive network discovery capability in WhatsUp Gold, you can now look deeper into your network and get a clear picture of not only layer 3 infrastructure data, but also layer 2 connectivity. WhatsConnected, a plug-in module, enhances the existing layer 3 discovery functionality in WhatsUp Gold with layer 2 discovery of not only what devices are present on your network, but how they are connected to each other as well.

Layer 2 discovery with WhatsConnected accesses the physical infrastructure information embedded in network devices to provide additional detailed topology information beyond what layer 3 discovery can provide. In addition to the discovery mechanisms used in WhatsUp Gold as detailed above, layer 2 discovery leverages a number of other mechanisms to discover devices including; Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and industry standard Link Layer Discovery Protocol or LLDP as well as equipment manufacturer proprietary discovery protocols to document port-to-port device connectivity.

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