Configure discovery settings

Before you can run a discovery scan on your network, you need to configure the discovery settings. These settings are located in the Settings column of the Discovery Console.

Select scan settings

WhatsUp Gold can use several different methods to scan your network. Select the scan type that best suits your network.

Note: The VMware scan feature is available in WhatsUp Gold when you are licensed for WhatsVirtual or when you are running the WhatsUp Gold product evaluation. To update or purchase a license, visit the WhatsUp Customer Portal.

Select Credentials

To correctly identify devices, WhatsUp Gold needs to query the devices using SNMP, Windows (WMI), the VMware API or all of these methods. In these sections, select the credentials that you want WhatsUp Gold to use during discovery. You can select multiple credentials. The credentials list contains the credentials currently configured in the Credential Library. To use a credential that is not listed, you must first add the credential to the Credential Library in WhatsUp Gold. For more information, see Using Credentials.

Note: Selecting too many credentials may significantly increase the time required to run discovery. To decrease the amount of time it takes for discovery to run, select only the credentials that are used by the devices you want to discover.

Configure Scan Method

WhatsUp Gold can use two methods to detect that a device exists on an IP address:

Configure Advanced Settings

You can modify the timeout and retry settings for SNMP and WMI requests. By default, WhatsUp Gold has a 2 second timeout for SNMP requests, 10 seconds for WMI requests, and retries failed SNMP requests once.

If the Use SNMP SysName to name devices option is selected, WhatsUp Gold attempts to identify the SNMP SysName as the first measure to define the device name. If SNMP is not enabled on a device, WhatsUp Gold attempts to resolve the DNS host name of discovered devices if the Resolve host names option is selected. If neither the SNMP SysName nor the DNS host name is available, WhatsUp Gold uses the device IP address to name the device. Clear Resolve host names and Use SNMP SysName to name devices if you do not want WhatsUp Gold to resolve the device name with either of these discovery methods.

By default, WhatsUp Gold automatically scans for virtual machines hosted by discovered VMware servers. If you do not want WhatsUp Gold to scan for the virtual machines hosted by discovered VMware servers, clear Auto scan virtual environments.

By default, WhatsUp Gold automatically uses layer 2 discovery to generate layer 2 topology maps and inventory information available in the Device Viewer. If you do not want WhatsUp Gold to use layer 2 discovery, clear Use layer 2 discovery and generate layer 2 topology map to disable Layer 2 discovery.

You may also enable wireless device discovery using WhatsUp Gold Wireless by selecting the Gather information for wireless topology and performance option.

See Also

Configuring and running discovery

Running discovery

Viewing progress summary information

Viewing device discovery information

Adding discovered devices to WhatsUp Gold

Configuring scheduled discovery

Configuring discovery results email settings

Viewing Device Information tab

Viewing scheduled discoveries

Saving discovery results

Using saved discovery results