Filtering, Searching and Focusing

On most DC Netscope views, it is possible to filter, search and focus on a selection of resources, in order to limit what is displayed. The following table summarises the characteristics of each of these actions:

Action Effect on visualisation Effect on data loading Benefit Notes
Filtering Unselected resources are ignored Unselected resources are not loaded Deselecting data speeds up the loading of data and the display of views. This can be useful to improve readability. You need to click on the reload button for the new selection to be taken into account
Focusing Only resources that are focused and the resources linked to them are displayed No impact on what is loaded Allows you to focus on a subset of the data. This can be useful to improve readability. -
Search Allows you to quickly select the resources to filter or the resources to focus on Unchecked resources are not loaded Quickly select what is filtered and what is focused. It may be necessary to click on the reload button to apply the changes

The following table indicates, for each view, which actions are available:

View Filtering Search Focus
Topology Available Available -
Dependencies viewer Available Available Available
Protocol analysis - - -
Cluster viewer Available Available Available

These actions, available in the following banner, will be detailed in the following subsections.

Filtering

It is possible to choose the resources displayed in the visualisations by unfolding the Map data settings. The resources appear in tabs, each tab being dedicated to a type of resource:

  • Distributed vSwitches: Distributed vSwitches
  • Port groups: vSwitch port groups
  • Networks: Networks of virtual machines
  • Hosts: Physical hosts
  • Virtual Machines: Virtual Machines

The following table indicates for each view, which type of filtering is available:

View Distributed vSwitches Port groups Networks Hosts Virtual Machines
Topology Available Available Available Available Available
Dependencies viewer - - - Available Available
Protocol analysis - - - - -
Cluster viewer - - - Available

Within a tab, there is a list of the corresponding resources. Each resource appears in the form of a checkbox field and a text containing the name of the resource:

The checkbox field indicates whether the resource should be displayed, as well as whether its data should be loaded.

In the case of a large infrastructure, loading the data and displaying the visualisations can be time consuming. It can be interesting to accelerate the loading by filtering certain resources. To do this, simply uncheck the checkbox, as shown in the following image:

Attention

Checking/unchecking the checkbox field does not reload the view by itself. The load button turns red as shown in the following image:

It is then necessary to click on it to update the visualisation. At the end of the loading process, the button returns to its normal colour:

Search

The search tab displays an interactive search bar that allows you to quickly find a set of resources, and easily filter or add them to the focus:

As shown in the previous screenshot, once a text is entered in the search bar, the corresponding resources appear below. The search bar supports both simple text and regular expressions.

The resources appear in the form of a box as in the following image:

It is possible to perform the following actions:

  • Filter / Unfilter the resource: by clicking on the checkbox field on the left of the title block. Note that this action is equivalent to checking the resource as described in the previous section Filtrage.
  • Add / Remove from focus By clicking on the pin icon to the right of the title block, the resource will be added (resp. removed) to the focus if the icon is transparent (resp. the icon has an orange background).

Please note that a resource that is part of the focus will have an orange pin, as shown in the following image:

Focus

Some views support setting a focus on a subset of the resources that are displayed by default.

The semantics of the focus are as follows:

  • Resources that are part of the focus are displayed in orange.
  • Resources that are not part of the focus, but are directly linked to at least one resource in the focus, are displayed in grey.
  • Links between resources are displayed as lines.
  • If a link concerns at least one resource that is part of the focus, then it is displayed in orange
  • If a link only concerns resources that are not part of the focus, then it is displayed in grey

The following screenshot gives an example of a view where a focus has been set up: