Managing Auto Assignment Policies

To support rapid network deployment, Network Director enables you to define your network configuration in a set of profiles that you can apply to multiple objects in your network. Auto assignment policies go one step ahead and further automate profile assignment. When Network Director detects the devices included in a policy, in a campus network, the Port profiles that you have created in Network Director are automatically assigned to various switch ports on supported devices.

Network Director uses LLDP to detect the type of network device. When the devices such as Desktop, Desktop Phone, Server Port, and Printer are LLDP enabled, Network Director triggers auto assignment of Port profiles for these devices.

Note:

Network Director detects most of the printers by using organizationally unique identifier (OUI). For more information, see Adding and Managing OUI Data in Network Director.

To create an auto assignment policy, you specify one or more Port profiles, devices, ports or port ranges on the devices to which the Port profile is to be deployed, and a few additional parameters.

After you create an auto assignment policy, when any of the device ports that you specified in the auto assignment policy are connected to a Desktop, Desktop Phone, Server Port, or Printer, Network Director performs the following tasks:

Initiates a job to update the Port profile configuration on the connected ports. If you enable a policy, Network Director overwrites the configuration that is already deployed on the ports and deploys the configuration from the profile that you specified in the auto assignment policy. You can view details of this job in the Job Management page and also from the Policy Assignment Log window.
Updates the port associations and displays the results in the Manage Port Profiles page. In the Manage Port Profiles page, the Port profiles that are assigned through an auto assignment policy are highlighted with a next to the profile name. You can view more details about the auto assignment in the Port Profile Details window.

To manage auto assignment policies:

Click in the Network Director banner.
Under Views, select one of the following views: Logical View, Location View, Device View, or Custom Group.
Tip:
Auto assignment is not available in Topology View.
Click Wired > Tasks > Manage Auto Assignments under the Tasks pane.
The Manage Auto Assignment Policy page opens.
From the Manage Auto Assignment Policy page, you can:
- Create a new policy by clicking Create. For details, see Creating Auto Assignments.
- Modify an existing policy by selecting the policy and clicking Edit.
- View information about a policy by selecting the policy and clicking Details. Network Director opens the Auto Assignment Policy Details page.
- Delete a policy by selecting the policy and clicking Delete.
- Deploy a policy by selecting the policy and clicking Run Now.

Table 1 describes the information provided about the policies on the Manage Auto Assignment Policy page. This page lists all auto assignment policies defined for your network, regardless of your current selected scope in the network view.

Table 1: Manage Auto Assignment Policy Page
Column	Description
Name	Unique name given to the auto assignment policy when the policy was created.
Description	Description of the policy that was entered when the policy was created.
Device Family Mode	Displays one of the following: EX—for EX Series switches ELS—for Campus Switching ELS
Log	Displays link details corresponding to each policy. Click Details corresponding to each policy. The Policy Assignment Log window opens listing the internal log of a policy.
Creation Time	Date and time when the policy was created.
Update Time	Date and time when the policy was last modified.

Tip:

All columns might not be currently displayed. To show or hide fields in the table, click the down arrow on the field header, select Columns, and select or clear the check box adjacent to the field that you want to show or hide.

Managing Auto Assignment Policies

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