PRTG Manual: Comparing Discovered Networks
UVexplorer does detailed discoveries of your network and stores the results in its database. Each discovery result represents a snapshot of what your network looked like at a particular point in time. Over time your network will change: devices will come and go, the network links that comprise your network will change, the IP addresses of devices may change, etc. Because your network is always changing, it can be very useful to see exactly how your network changed between two specific points in time (i.e., between two different discovery results). Using the Discovery Diff command you can answer detailed questions about how your network changed, such as: What devices were added or removed from my network? What links were added or removed? Which devices changed their IP address? Etc.
To view the detailed differences between two discovery results, do the following:
1.Click on the Discovery Diff icon on the Home toolbar. The Discovery Diff form will appear.
2.Select the two discovery results that you want to compare.
2.To select the first discovery result, click the “Select First Discovery Result” button. This will cause the Select Discovery Result form to appear. After selecting the discovery result you want, click the “Select” button.
2.To select the second discovery result, click the “Select Second Discovery Result” button and follow the same process.
3.Click the “Run Diff” button, and UVexplorer will compute and display the detailed differences between them.
The differences between the discovery results are displayed in two panels at the bottom of the form. The left panel displays the differences in a hierarchical tree format. By navigating the tree you can view the differences that exist between the two discovery results. When a difference is selected in the left panel, more details about the selected difference are displayed in the right panel.
The types of differences displayed include the following:
▪Removed Devices – A list of devices that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second
▪Added Devices – A list of devices that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Changed Devices – A list of devices that appeared in both discovery results, but for which some device details changed between the two discoveries. There are a number of device properties that could change between discoveries. For example, one of a device’s IP or MAC addresses might change between discoveries.
▪Removed Links – A list of network links that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second
▪Added Links – A list of network links that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Removed MACs – A list of all MAC addresses that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added MACs – A list of all MAC addresses that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Removed IPs – A list of all IP addresses that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added IPs – A list of all IP addresses that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Reassigned IPs – A list of all IP addresses that appeared in both discovery results, but were assigned to different devices in the two results (i.e., they were reassigned)
▪Removed Host Names – A list of all host names that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added Host Names – A list of all host names that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Removed NetBIOS Names – A list of all NetBIOS names that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added NetBIOS Names – A list of all NetBIOS names that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Removed System Names – A list of all system names that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added System Names – A list of all system names that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
▪Removed Serial Numbers – A list of all serial numbers that appeared in the first discovery result, but not the second.
▪Added Serial Numbers – A list of all serial numbers that appeared in the second discovery result, but not the first
