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The original was posted on /r/sysadmin by /u/SK-Incognito on 2024-01-24 07:17:50+00:00.
We were looking for a lightweight, free, and easy to deploy network management tool to easily discover all devices across our enterprise network. We have a full Cisco network stack, which is easy enough to manage via DNA Center or by SSHing into a switch etc., but sometimes you just want to quickly find a device by hostname/IP/MAC address and find out what switch it's connected to in a clean, intuitive interface. Was chatting to our cybersec MSP and they recommended Netdisco, so I thought I'd look into it.
Was very easy to deploy, it discovered all network devices and hosts through SNMP, can display a network topology map, show ports that are shutdown or locked via port-security, network device OS/firmware versions, serial numbers, plus so much more. Auditing our VLANs is such a breeze now.
Our help desk have always had to ask us (systems and networks team) for help with anything network related, but since we've deployed Netdisco and given the help desk staff access, they've been able to easily do that level 1 network troubleshooting and get a better understanding of our enterprise network.
Just recently we needed to locate a bunch of devices and what switchports they were connected to, something that's fairly simple if you know what to do, but pretty time consuming if you don't. With Netdisco one of our help desk staff was able to locate the devices, IPs, MAC addresses, and the switchports they were connected to all in about 15 minutes.
Just thought I'd share for those who are in need of something like this. Amazing tool.