Network Topology Mapper 2.1 RC will be made available soon !

Network Topology Mapper 2.1 Release Candidate will be generally available soon. This RC bits will be made available in SolarWinds customer portal, to all our customers who are on active maintenance.

RC builds are made available prior to the formal release, to existing customers under active maintenance. These are used to get your feedback in production environments and are fully supported. SolarWinds Support are prepared to take on any support cases referencing RC built and our engineering team are on standby to handle any escalated issues reported.

Now to the notable features packed in 2.1

• SNMP V3 AES 192 & 256 Encryption Support
  • Use-Case: Users who have their devices configured for AES encryption 192 or 256 keys, can take advantage of the product discovering those nodes and mapping out the network.
  • Work Flow:
    • Create a New Network Scan
    • In SNMP Credentials page, click on Add Credential
    • Give a unique credential name, which will help you identify this entered credential from the rest of the entered or going to be entered credentials
    • Choose the radio button called SNMPv3
    • Enter the User Name, select between MD5 & SHA1 authentication methods
    • Choose the encryption method, which has been configured on your devices, select from DES56, AES128, AES192, AES256
    • Test your entered credential with any one of node IP Address configured for SNMP V3 AES192 or AES256 encryption.

• Enhanced Node Properties Page
  • Use-Case:
    • Right Pane - Grid and tab display: Obtain detail node information along with visibility of your discovered map
    • Node information for multiple nodes on the map, by single-click a given node one at a time.
    • Visualize fields with lengthy text without ever being truncated.
    • Share basic node information content to colleagues, using the new copy to clipboard function.
  • Work Flow:
    • Select any node on the map, right-click and choose node properties
    • This action will trigger the opening of the right pane, and auto populate the data for the selected node
    • The Right Pane be default will display three tabs, namely Node Details, Interface Data & VLAN Data
    • Node Details tab - Gives useful information about the identified node like the Node name, Node role, IP Address, Vendor etc. Fields like Node Name, Primary Node Role, polling IP Address and Custom Properties can be edited/changed/added depending on the user's need. The basic information section, also holds an option to copy to clipboard the displayed data for sharing purposes.
    • Interface Data tab - Displays the STP data for the given switch and ARP cache identified from the node.
    • VLAN tab - Is a new tab we introduced in the application, which maps interface names to the VLAN ID/Name for the selected node.

• Polling and displaying VLAN data for Juniper, HP/3Com and other vendor devices which provide VLAN data using Q-Bridge MIB
  • Use-Case:

    • Create an dynamic design map for a given VLAN(s), for network analysis

    • Analysis & Understand which nodes participate for a given VLAN

    • Option of displaying VLAN(s) on connection links for easier & faster referencing

    • Generate static Visio, PDF & PNG format VLAN designed map for sharing, referencing or archiving.

    • Export VLAN design map(s) to the Orion console, for visual referencing and monitoring.

    • Understand and Analysis, the VLAN parameters for a given switch.

      • VLANs configured on a particular switch
      • VLANs to interface mapping.

    • Identify configured VLAN IP Address for referencing, configuring and designing using VLAN Reports

  • Work Flow:
    • Analysis & Understand which nodes participate for a given VLAN
      • On the left pane, section Network Tree View - Group by. Choose VLAN
      • Un-check all the filters and select the ones you want to map (We are now displaying the VLAN Name to the ID, for better understanding and referencing)
    • Option of displaying VLAN(s) on connection links
      • On the left pane, section Connection Display Options
      • Under Layer 2 (Switches) filter, one can find a new filter call VLAN
      • Once the filter is on, this map can be export to generate static Visio, PDF & PNG format.
      • The displayed map, can be export to Orion Network Atlas and brought up on the Orion console.
    • Analysis, the VLAN parameters for a given switch
      • Right-Click a node and choose Node properties
      • Under VLAN data, obtain and understand interfaces configured to which VLANs
    • Identify configured VLAN IP Address
      • Choose Reports from the Menu bar
      • Select VLAN Reports
      • VLAN Reports have 3 new columns namely Interface Name, VLAN Status and VLAN IP Address

• NTM Help Menu - Discovery Log & SNMPWALK Utility                                                                                                         
  • Use-Case:
    • Troubleshoot issues like nodes not identified correctly and links/connections misses
    • In Product SNMPWALK utility, run and launch the snmpwalk utility from the application
    • Check for any latest Software Update for the application and download
    • Direct access to NTM Thwack Forum to gather information about the product and to create feature requests.
    • Tech Diagnostics Utility now offers our users to package walks from devices or other files (like visio output, pictures etc) with the diagnostics package for SolarWinds Engineering investigation.

• Other Enhancements
  • Search bar into Reports
  • Interface display name is now configurable and the default display character count has been increased to 20.
  • Export of Interface display names, Speed and VLAN display to Visio (We recommend not to enable many display filters, the result could have your maps looking noisy)
    
  • Informative Discovery Scan Messaging
  • Incorporated better merging algorithm after completion of every discovery scan.

WE WANT YOUR COMMENTS !

Once we announce the RC availability, be sure to check out the Network Topology Mapper RC Group here on thwack. If there are any known issues reported we will be putting it up there and will be happy to answer questions about the RC and features in the RC.

If you decide to install the RC binaries, you will be one of the first recipients of 2.1. Because you’ll be one of the first, Product management and Engineering will be actively monitoring your posts and engage with you about any feedback you have. You can also raise a ticket to support about 2.1 RC and its fully supportable. Your feedback is important to us and we want to make sure your upgrade experience a smooth one.

Tip: If you install the Release Candidate in your production environment and post to the Release Candidate forum about your upgrade experience we would reward you with 2,000 thwack points + a badge award for participation