Topology View

You can view the network hierarchy for the devices and subnetwork in real-time. The topology view is available for devices running on LLDP including Arista switches and connected neighbors.

Setup

You can customize the topology by completing the following steps.

  1. Click the Topology tab to view your network.
  2. To enter layout hints, click on a device in the topology view and then click on the layout tab.
    Following example shows the detail of a device.
    Figure 1. CVP Detail Layout

Overlays

You can superimpose link-level metrics overlay onto the network topology. Use the Layers Panel to view these overlays and color-codes based on the severity of that metric. Following are the overlays supported in this release.

The following table lists the Overlays supported in this release.

Table 1. Supported Overlays
Overlay Description
Bandwidth Utilization Shows the bitrate as a percentage of the speed of the link. It uses the maximum bitrate in either direction on the link, averaged out over a one-minute window. Light green indicates a small percent of the link is being used, while darker greens indicate higher usage. Beyond 80% utilization, the links show up in yellow or red.
Traffic Throughput Shows the bitrate of a link as an absolute number. Darker blues indicate higher utilization.
Error Rates Show if either end of a link is registering input or output errors (for example, CRC Errors). It uses a one-minute window, and displays severity in increasingly dark reds.
Discard Rates Indicate that a link is dropping packets, likely due to congestion. Links discarding more packets in a one-minute window are shown in darker red.
None Turns off all colors.

Custom Topology Views

From the Topology tab, you can perform the following steps to customize a view:

  1. To move a rack to a different pod use the Pod field. For example, the switch called cv-demo-sw3 is set to be in a pod 1.
    Figure 2. User Layout Hints
  2. To setup the pod or rack names, apply a layout hint for switch with alternate name or pod hint for the spine switch to rename the pod. Following example shows the top-of-rack switch cv-demo-sw3 default name change via the rack layout hint.
    Figure 3. Device Details in Layout

Changing the Node Type

The following table lists the node types supported by the Topology view.

Table 2. Supported Node Type
Node Type Description
Edge Device The device is an edge device, for example, leading to the Internet or another network, or a similar function device.
Core Switch The device is at the core level switch (above spines) or similar function device.
Spine Switch The device is a pod level (spine or aggregation) switch or similar function device.
Leaf Switch The device is a top of rack switch or similar function device.
Endpoint Device The device is a server or similar endpoint device.
Setting the Node Type layout hint gives the Topology view of the type of device selected. Selecting skip auto-generating forces the auto tagger to ignore the device and not assign or modify any of the hints.
Figure 4. Changing Node Type

Nodes and Features

Nodes are arranged in clusters. To expand a cluster, click on the representative Cluster-node. To collapse a cluster, click on the minus (-) icon.

You can select various overlays on the graph for color coding links.

To see details about a node and its neighbors, click on the Node. You can also see the immediate neighbors of the device and the metrics related to particular physical links between devices by clicking Neighbors List.