Setting Up Default Device Contact Information; Creating And Using Device Groups - Extreme Networks EPICenter Guide Manual

Getting Started with EPICenter
You must input the IP address of the device you want to add, as well as the communication
information for the device. EPICenter pre-fills the fields in the Add dialog with the default
communication information—you can change it as appropriate.

Setting up Default Device Contact Information

For simplicity in managing multiple devices in large networks, administrators typically use the same
logins, passwords, community strings and so on, for multiple devices. Therefore, to save time when
adding new devices, EPICenter provides default values for these communication parameters.
To save time when you add your own network devices to the EPICenter inventory, you can configure
the default values to those used in your own network.
To change the default communication values, click the Default button at the top of the Inventory
Manager main page.
EPICenter uses the Extreme default values for its switches as the defaults in EPICenter:
Login as admin with no password
●
SSH2 disabled
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For Cisco devices only, the default Cisco enable password (none)
●
Default SNMP v1 community strings public (for read) and private (for write)
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SNMP V3 user initialmd5
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SNMP V3 privacy set to No Privacy, with no password
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SNMP V3 authentication set to MD5 Authentication, with password initialmd5
●
You can change any of these as appropriate for your network installation. You can also override the
defaults for any individual device or set of devices when you initially add the devices to the EPICenter
inventory database, or by using the Modify Devices and Device Groups function at a later time.

Creating and Using Device Groups

EPICenter uses the concept of Device Groups to allow you to group devices with common features or
functions. This allows you to work with multiple devices as a unit for a number of purposes within
EPICenter.
For example, you might create Device Groups that represent devices by physical location, such as
buildings, floors, or closets. You could create logical groupings such as device groups for your core
devices, your edge devices, or all devices belonging to departments (engineering, sales, etc.). You could
also create Device Groups for devices with common maintenance or management features, such as
passwords or community strings in common.
A single device can belong to multiple device groups, so you can use Device Groups in many different
ways. For example, you can scope alarms to specific device groups, so you can set up different levels of
fault detection for different classes of devices. Functional device groups allow you to perform functions
such as upgrading software versions or changing passwords on devices as a group, rather than one-by-
one. Later chapters in this guide will provide examples of how device groups can be used for specific
purposes in EPICenter.
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EPICenter Concepts and Solutions Guide