Does DataMiner support LLDP? How does it play into DataMiner, where and how is it used? Do I need specific drivers that are compatible?
I don’t have a complete overview of drivers supporting LLDP, as we added support for LLDP in IDP in a generic way, i.e. each driver that supports LLDP can integrate with IDP to provision its DCF connections.
Normally if the device supports LLDP, the driver can use the LLDP-MIB to poll that information. I know that the Cisco Manager (range 5.1.3.x) supports LLDP and that there was some interest into adding it for the Juniper Network Manager.
That’s correct.
Just from a developer perspective. If I would be creating a driver, and I want to implement this, are there any guidelines that I need to follow then? Because how does IDP recognize that LLDP data? I assume it has to be possible for IDP then to identify that data somehow, and it would have to be made available towards IDP in a specific format?
There are standardized tables that are defined in the LLDP-MIB. These are usually used for SNMP devices with LLDP capabilities. If any other communication type would also support LLDP, we would be limited in terms of usability. Therefore we decided to integrate LLDP in IDP as generic as possible.
Clients (e.g. Deploy squads) can implement a custom ‘Connectivity Discovery’ script that fetches the necessary information and can use libraries exposed by IDP to send the information to the application. The information includes the Element, CI Type, Chassis ID, and Connections. There’s already an example Automation Script delivered with the package, called IDP_Example_Custom_ConnectivityDiscovery. This script fetches information from the Cisco Manager (5.1.3.9) as an example. The script can be duplicated, updated where needed, and configured for the desired CI Type.
To be able to use the Connectivity Discovery trough IDP, one has to do two things on the CI Type: 1) Configure the custom script, 2) enable workflow automation settings.
To configure the custom script, you can go to the IDP Application > Admin > CI Types > Connectivity and select the custom Script for the desired CI Type. To enable workflow automation settings, you will have to navigate to Workflows > Automation and enable Connectivity Discovery for this CI Type. In this way, users can have complete visibility and control how to provision DCF connections throughout your DataMiner system.
Could you please tell me if Arista driver and Mellanox driver already supports LLDP, or Connectivity Discovery capability for IDP ?
So if I understand correctly, if LLDP is supported by a device, then that needs to be made part of the device driver. And that then empowers IDP (Infrastructure Discovery and Provisioning) to convert that connectivity information into the DataMiner Connectivity Framework (DCF), so that this can be used throughout DataMiner for different purposes?