Initiating a Discovery Scan

Before you can manage devices with WhatsUp Gold, you must discover devices using the Discovery wizard. You can apply discovery on any network, subnet, or IP address reachable from your WhatsUp Gold installation.

There are two main approaches for discovery:

• Seed Address Scan. WhatsUp Gold "seeds" or builds an address list from target device SNMP data. It then continues to scan for additional devices based on the SNMP responses from these seed devices. This powerful feature can be described as the 'cast a wide net' approach. It also has useful controls for limiting limiting the expanse of address boundaries and network hops.
• IP Address Scan. Limit scans to check for specific ranges, subnets, or spec files.

Initiate a discovery scan:

1. Select DISCOVER > New Scan from the main navigation menu.
2. Enable either seed (build list from device SNMP data) mode or IP address (single device, gateway, group or subnet) mode:
   • Seed Address Scan. Include the address(es) you want to begin from and branch off of for this discovery. Set Scan Depth if you want to limit the the number of hops traversed in the discovery process. You can also set limitations:
     • Limit to Private Networks. Limit to devices with private IP addresses.
     • Limit to Subnets. Subnets that WhatsUp Gold currently has monitored devices.
     • Limit. (Input field.) Enter IP addresses that identify subnets or enter ranges (or both) to limit the expanse of discovery.
   • IP Address Scan. Enter known IP range(s) or address(s).

   Note: If you want WhatsUp Gold to disregard one or more IP addresses, enter them in the Exclude field.

3. Tune and customize your scan using any of the following:
   • Gateway IP. Include the default gateway IP address for the WhatsUp Gold server in the discovery scan. Similarly, you can also enable Local Subnet. Automatically include the entire subnet local to the WhatsUp Gold server in the scan.
   • Select Groups. Include devices in specific subgroups within your device hierarchy during discovery.
   • Use Host File. Access a browser used to select a host file from which devices can be imported into and subsequently added to WhatsUp Gold.
   • Limit to Private Networks and/or Limit to Monitored Subnets. Limit discovery scan results accordingly.
   • Maximum Number of Devices. Specify a set quantity for which to limit the number of devices discovered by WhatsUp Gold.
   • Advanced Settings. Expand additional controls which you can use to fine tune your discovery scan. Advanced settings allows you to expand the discovery scan to include virtualization and wireless environments, limit the number of data threads that can be collected concurrently, resolve hostnames for discovered devices, enable device naming based on SNMP Sysname, select specific connectivity options to use while scanning, specify ping timeout and retry settings, and enable automatic updates to devices.
4. Click Next to advance to the Credentials tab.
5. Click the check boxes to specify credentials WhatsUp Gold should use to access and communicate with network devices during discovery.
   Use the controls at the top of the interface to edit (<icon>) or prioritize a credential (<icons>) for device discovery. In the event a credential you need for discovery has not been configured in the Credentials Library, click <icon> to create a new credential directly from the discovery wizard. Finally, enable Use all current and future credentials to use every credential in the library during the discovery scan.
6. Click Next to advance to the Schedule area of the discovery wizard.
7. Enable Schedule to display controls for configuring the discovery to run at a set date, time, and recurrence. You can also set an expiration date for a recurring discovery scan and instruct WhatsUp Gold to send an email notification when the discovery scan is complete.
8. Click Next to advance to the Summary area of the discovery wizard.
9. Review the Settings, Credentials, and Schedule options. Click <icon> to the right of the applicable section to make changes, if needed.
10. Click Run to initiate the discovery scan or Save to retain this scan configuration as a discovery profile in WhatsUp Gold for future use.
11. To enable device-level monitoring on selected devices, proceed to Promoting Discovered Devices.

See Also Running Discovery Promoting Discovered Devices Using Saved Discovery Profiles