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Entity Management Best Practices

  1. Use the entity matching utility to capture newly discovered devices.

  2. Perform entity matching at least weekly.

  3. Schedule a 10-minute task on Mondays to capture any weekend changes.

  4. Perform post-switch discovery if discovery updates take multiple days to complete.

  5. Validate entities using reports:

    1. All hosts are presenting data as expected.

    2. All conversations are captured.

    3. Metrics are displayed (use report metrics appropriate for the integration, e.g., Consumed Bandwidth for switch integration).

Which Method Should I Use to Create Entities?

When to Use Entity Matching

When to Use Entity Import

The most commonly used expressions and examples apply to your environment.

Your organization uses a well-defined CMDB or other source that has export to .csv file capabilities.

Your organization used well-defined naming conventions and zoning practices.

When aliases are not automatically discovered (Cisco example FC Alias, zoned by interface).

Your storage ports are clearly defined.

Storage Virtualizer is used for the initiator defined ports (depending on architecture).

Your organization uses complex naming conventions or aliasing on switches that Regex wouldn’t be efficient to use.

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