MADCat Tool Accurately Detects Network Attachments

Exactly how many ports are on your network? How many devices are active? That information is essential, especially for billing and planning purposes. A CSC technologist has developed an innovative software solution that provides accurate port counts. It is being used throughout the company as a business intelligence and inventory tool.

In the world of computer networks, MAC (Media Access Control) addresses play an important role in identifying and mapping physical components such as routers and wireless access cards. CSC computer scientist Tom Fader has developed a software tool called MADCat (MAC Address Detection and Categorization) that provides CSC and its customers with unique automated network discovery capabilities.

Taking the guesswork out

Because CSC’s desktop services contracts are commonly billed on a per-user basis, it is essential to maintain accurate counts on the number of devices and ports in use on a network. Prior to the development of MADCat, keeping accurate tallies of network components was both time-consuming and costly. CSC network engineers would periodically log into every device on a network and manually undertake a port count or use a vendor-specific tool that provided limited accuracy.

Both methods had their shortcomings. Port counts and device tallies using the old methods provided just a brief snapshot in time, resulting in highly inaccurate counts of what was in use across a network. Fader explains, "In my experience, if you poll a device only once, particularly switches, you only get about 40 percent of the information available." For example, employees with laptops might connect and disconnect from their docking stations throughout the day, so conducting only one port scan per day resulted in a severe undercounting of the true inventory.

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Fader developed MADCat to serve as an automated network discovery tool that polls ports, switches and hubs three to six times throughout each business day. He says, "MADCat finds things not found by anybody else. This provides a much more accurate and comprehensive view of what’s attached to the entire network over the course of a week than you would get if you only did one scan per day."

The information detected by MADCat is matched with other desktop attributes generated by CSC’s inventory system to provide network engineers with accurate counts of active network ports and switches. This allows CSC’s Managed Network Services team to bill customers more accurately and also provides backup information that can be easily audited. Fader adds, "MADCat takes all the guesswork out of the process. In customers where we have complete network accessibility, we’ve reached 99 percent accuracy in terms of the information we collect."

Taking eInventory

CSC’s eInventory solution, which includes MADCat, is an automated desktop asset discovery system deployed internally by the company. It uses a wide range of commercial and proprietary network software to perform a variety of tasks. In addition to MAC address detection, these include network infrastructure device detection, computer and user name lookups, as well as desktop operating system identification. Information gathered by MADCat is integrated with inventory data from other sources, including network management agents, to generate comprehensive reports that feed into the eInventory system.

One example of MADCat’s capabilities is a comprehensive switch report that details such information as the number of active and inactive ports, port locations, IP addresses and the number of trunk ports in use. Fader says, "This tool comes in handy for CSC customers that want to know how many ports — active and inactive — they have on their switches, what devices are attached, what ports are on those switches, what VLANs are configured on those switch ports and what other device names are attached to the ports on those switches."

MADCat generates a detailed report that includes a list of all switch ports for all switches for a particular CSC customer. Fader says, "CSC network engineers use this switch report as their raw data in preparing a network bill to their direct customers as well as for switch capacity reporting. This can be used for capacity planning purposes, which saves money by reducing capital assets." Fader says CSC can also use hub reports generated by MADCat to check if hubs are being used in violation of a network agreement.

Fader says another key advantage MADCat has over other network discovery tools is that those solutions largely rely on PC agents to generate hardware inventory data. "But it’s not like these PCs have GPS. They can’t figure out where they’re located. That’s where MADCat comes in. It can tell you where these devices are and, more importantly, where the devices are that don’t have any agents involved," he explains. In addition, MADCat produces an active MAC report as well as an optional report that can provide clues to the status of active servers. MADCat can also be used a tool for calculating productivity metrics and unit costs metrics for capital planning purposes.

CSC network professionals aim to gather the most accurate information possible to more efficiently manage networks and justify client billings. Fader says, "MADCat lets us know just where the desktops and laptops are and how many are in use. It helps take care of the commodity business that our customers don’t want to handle."

MADCat was selected as a finalist for the 2008 Chairman’s Award for Excellence, the highest form of recognition for CSC technologists.